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University of California • Berkeley

From the Bequest

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Dorothy K. Thomas

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THE
ENCHANTED CASTLE

• • •

• •

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

FOR CHILDREN

Illustrated, crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s.
The Treasure Seekers
The Would-be-Goods
Nine Unlikely Tales for Children
Five Children and It
New Treasure Seekers
The Story of the Amulet

FOR GROWN-UPS

Crmvn 8vo, cloth, 6s.
Man and Maid
LONDON : T. FISHER UNWIN

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2008 with funding from

Microsoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/enchantedcastleOOnesbrich

THE HALL IN WHICH THE CHILDREN FOUND THEMSELVES WAS
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE IN THE WORLD.

The

Enchanted Castle

BY

E. NESBIT

AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF THE AMULET,'
"THE TREASURE SEEKERS," ETC.

WITH 47 ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. R. MILLAR

LONDON

T. FISHER UNWIN

Adelphi Terrace

1907

(All rights reserved.)

TO

MARGARET OSTLER

WITH LOVE FROM

E. NESBIT

Peggy, you came from the heath and moor,
And you brought their airs through my open door
You brought the blossom of youth to blow-
In the Latin Quarter of Soho.

For the sake of that magic I send you here
A tale of enchantments, Peggy dear,
— A bit of my work, and a bit of my heart . . .
The bit that you left when we had to part.

September 25, 1907.
Royalty Chambers, Soho, W.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE HALL IN WHICH THE CHILDREN FOUND THEMSELVES Frontispiece

PAGE
" LITTLE DECEIVER ! " SHE SAID . . . . .18

JIMMY CAME IN HEAD FIRST ..... 24

"IT'S THE ENTRANCE TO THE ENCHANTED CASTLE " . . 29

" THIS IS AN ENCHANTED GARDEN " . . . . 33

THE RED CLUE RAN STRAIGHT ACROSS THE GRASS . . 37

THE THREE STOOD BREATHLESS, AWAITING THE RESULT . 40

"it's A GAME, isn't IT?" ASKED JIMMY . . .48

she was waiting for them with a candle in her hand 51
looking at herself in the little silver-framed mirror . 56
backward and forward he went .... 61

"your shadow's not invisible, anyhow " . . .68

the bread and butter waving about in the air . 75

" halloa, missy, ain't you blacked yer back, neither ! " . 83
"you're getting at me " . . . . 92

"STOW it!" cried THE MAN . . . . .95

10 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

PAGK
" WHAT'S THAT ? " THE POLICEMEN ASKED QUICKLY . 104

" I MUST GO HOME — NOW — THIS MINUTE "... 108

THE MOVING STONE BEAST ..... 115

THE MEN WERE TAKING SILVER OUT OP TWO GREAT CHESTS . 120

JOHNSON WASHING IN HIS OWN BACKYARD . . . 131

GERALD HALTED AT THE END OP A LITTLE LANDING-STAGE . 137

HE STAGGERED BACK AGAINST THE WATER-BUTT . . 142

"'e's LEP' INTO THE WATER" . ... 151

IT WAS ELIZA, DISHEVELLED, BREATHLESS . . . 154

SHE KISSED HIM WITH LITTLE QUICK, FRENCH PECKS . . 160

DOWN CAME THE LOVELIEST BLUE-BLACK HAIR . . 171

FULLY HALF A DOZEN OF THE CHAIRS WERE OCCUPIED . 175

A LIMP HAND WAS LAID ON HIS ARM . . . 184

" WONDER WHAT LIES HE'S TELLING THEM " . . 195

IT WAS A STRANGE PROCESSION .... 201

A PAINTED POINTED PAPER FACE PEERED OUT . . . 214

JIMMY SHOOK THEM TO PIECES .... 221

TWO HATS WERE RAISED ...... 231

KATHLEEN HANDS UP THE CLOTHES AND THE STICKS . 235

HE CRIED OUT ALOUD IN THAT CROWDED PLACE . . 246

SHE SAT DOWN SUDDENLY ON THE FLOOR . . . 250

KATHLEEN HAD HER WISH. SHE WAS A STATUE . . 264

MABEL LAY DOWN, WAS COVERED UP, AND LEFT . . 268

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 11

PAGE
THE MONSTER LIZARD SLIPPED HEAVILY INTO THE WATER . 272

"WHAT IS IT?" SHE ASKED, BEGINNING TO TREMBLE . 27G

SIDE BY SIDE THE THREE SWAM ..... 283

IT WAS A CELESTIAL PICNIC ..... 288

THE JOYS OP DIPPING ONE'S FEET IN COOL, RUNNING WATER 315

THEY STOOD STILL AND LOOKED AT EACH OTHER . . 319

HE BECAME EAGER, ALERT, VERY KEEN" . . . 326

THE AMERICAN FIRED AGAIN .... 332

The Enchanted Castle

CHAPTER I

There were three of them — Jerry, Jimmy, and
Kathleen. Of course, Jerry's name was Gerald,
and not Jeremiah, whatever you may think ;
and Jimmy's name was James ; and Kathleen
was never called by her name at all, but Cathy,
or Catty, or Puss Cat, when her brothers were
pleased with her, and Scratch Cat when they
were not pleased. And they were at school
in a little town in the West of England — the
boys at one school, of course, and the girl
at another, because the sensible habit of having
boys and girls at the same school is not yet as
common as I hope it will be some day. They used
to see each other on Saturdays and Sundays
at the house of a kind maiden lady ; but it
Avas one of those houses where it is impos-
sible to play. You know the kind of house,
don't you ? There is a sort of a something
about that kind of house that makes you
hardly able even to talk to each other when

13

14 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

you are left alone, and playing seems un-
natural and affected. So they looked forward
to the holidays, when they should all go home
and be together all day long, in a house where
playing was natural and conversation possible,
and where the Hampshire forests and fields were
full of interesting things to do and see. Their
Cousin Betty was to be there too, and there
were plans. Betty's school broke up before
theirs, and so she got to the Hampshire home
first, and the moment she got there she began
to have measles, so that my three couldn't go
home at all. You may imagine their feelings.
The thought of seven weeks at Miss Hervey's
was not to be borne, and all three wrote
home and said so. This astonished their parents
very much, because they had always thought it
was so nice for the children to have dear Miss
Hervey's to go to. However, they were "jolly
decent about it," as Jerry said, and after a lot
of letters and telegrams, it was arranged that
the boys should go and stay at Kathleen's
school, where there were now no girls left
and no mistresses except the French one.

" It'll be better than being at Miss Hervey's,"
said Kathleen, when the boys came round to
ask Mademoiselle when it would be convenient
for them to come ; " and, besides, our school's not
half so ugly as yours. We do have tablecloths
on the tables and curtains at the windows, and
yours is all deal boards, and desks, and inkiness."

When they had gone to pack their boxes
Kathleen made all the rooms as pretty as

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 15

she could with flowers in jam jars — marigolds
chiefly, because there was nothing much else
in the back garden. There were geraniums in
the front garden, and calceolarias and lobelias ;
of course, the children were not allowed to pick
these.

" We ought to have some sort of play to
keep us going through the holidays," said
Kathleen, when tea was over, and she had
unpacked and arranged the boys' clothes in
the painted chests of drawers, feeling very
grown-up and careful as she neatly laid the
different sorts of clothes in tidy little heaps
in the drawers. " Suppose we write a book."

" You couldn't," said Jimmy.

" I didn't mean me, of course," said Kathleen,
a little injured ; " I meant us."

" Too much fag," said Gerald briefly.

"If we wrote a book," Kathleen persisted,
" about what the insides of schools really are
like, people would read it and say how clever'
we were."

" More likely expel us," said Gerald. " No ;
we'll have an out-of-doors game — bandits, or
something like that. It wouldn't be bad if Ave
could get a cave and keep stores in it, and have
our meals there."

" There aren't any caves," said Jimmy, who
was fond of contradicting every one. " And,
besides, your precious Mamselle won't let us
go out alone, as likely as not."

" Oh, we'll see about that," said Gerald. " I'll
go and talk to her like a father."

16 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" Like that ? " Kathleen pointed the thumb
of scorn at him, and he looked in the glass.

" To brush his hair and his clothes and to
wash his face and hands was to our hero but
the work of a moment," said Gerald, and went
to suit the action to the word.

It was a very sleek boy, brown and thin
and interesting-looking, that knocked at the
door of the parlour where Mademoiselle sat
reading a yellow-covered book and wishing
vain wishes. Gerald could always make him-
self look interesting at a moment's notice, a
very useful accomplishment in dealing with
strange grown-ups. It was done by opening
his grey eyes rather wide, allowing the corners
of his mouth to droop, and assuming a gentle,
pleading expression, resembling that of the
late little Lord Fauntleroy — who must, by the
way, be quite old now, and an awful prig.

" Entrez ! " said Mademoiselle, in shrill French
accents. So he entered.

" Eh bien ? " she said rather impatiently.
" I hope I am not disturbing you," said Gerald,
in whose mouth, it seemed, butter would not
have melted.

" But no," she said, somewhat softened.
" What is it that you desire ? "

" I thought I ought to come and say how do
you do," said Gerald, "because of you being the
lady of the house."

He held out the newly-washed hand, still
damp and red. She took it.

" You are a very polite little boy," she said.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 17

" Not at all," said Gerald, more polite than
ever. " I am so sorry for you. It must be
dreadful to have us to look after in the
holidays."

" But not at all," said Mademoiselle in her
turn. " I am sure you will be very good
childrens."

Gerald's look assured her that he and the
others would be as near angels as children
could be without ceasing to be human.

" We'll try," he said earnestly.

"Can one do anything for you?" asked the
French governess kindly.

" Oh, no, thank you," said Gerald. " We don't
want to give you any trouble at all. And I was
thinking it would be less trouble for you if we
were to go out into the woods all day to-morrow
and take our dinner with us — something cold,
you know — so as not to be a trouble to the
cook."

" You are very considerate," said Mademoiselle
coldly. Then Gerald's eyes smiled; they had
a trick of doing this when his lips were quite
serious. Mademoiselle caught the twinkle, and
she laughed and Gerald laughed too.

" Little deceiver ! " she said. " Why not say at
once you want to be free of surveillance, how
you say — overwatching — without pretending it
is me you wish to please ? "

" You have to be careful with grown-ups,"
said Gerald, "but it isn't all pretence either.
We don't want to trouble you — and we don't

want you to "

2

"LITTLE DECEIVER !" SHE SAID.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 19

" To trouble you. Eh bieu ! Your parents,
they permit these days at woods ? "

" Oh, yes," said Gerald truthfully.

" Then I will not be more a dragon than the
parents. I will forewarn the cook. Are you
content ? "

" Rather ! " said Gerald. " Mademoiselle, you
are a dear."

" A deer ? " she repeated — " a stag ? "

" No, a — a cherie" said Gerald — " a regular
Al cherie. And you shan't repent it. Is there
anything we can do for you — wind your wool,
or find your spectacles, or ? "

" He thinks me a grandmother ! " said Made-
moiselle, laughing more than ever. " Go then,

and be not more naughty than you must."

*****

" Well, what luck ? " the others asked.

" It's all right," said Gerald indifferently. " I
told you it would be. The ingenuous youth
won the regard of the foreign governess, who
in her youth had been the beauty of her humble
village."

" I don't believe she ever was. She's too
stern," said Kathleen.

" Ah ! " said Gerald, " that's only because you
don't know how to manage her. She wasn't
stern with me."

" I say, what a humbug you are though,
aren't you ? " said Jimmy.

" No, I'm a dip — what's-its-name ? Something-
like an ambassador. Dipsoplomatist — that's
what I am. Anyhow, we've got our day, and

20 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

if we don't find a cave in it my name's not
Jack Robinson."

Mademoiselle, less stern than Kathleen had
ever seen her, presided at supper, which was
bread and treacle spread several hours before,
and now harder and drier than any other food
you can think of. Gerald was very polite in
handing her butter and cheese, and pressing
her to taste the bread and treacle.

" Bah ! it is like sand in the mouth — of a dry-
ness ! Is it possible this pleases you ? "

" No," said Gerald, " it is not possible, but it
is not polite for boys to make remarks about
their food ! "

She laughed, but there was no more dried
bread and treacle for supper after that.

" How do you do it ? " Kathleen whispered
admiringly as they said good-night.

" Oh, it's quite easy when you've once got a
grown-up to see what you're after. You'll see,
I shall drive her with a rein of darning cotton
after this."

Next morning Gerald got up early and
gathered a little bunch of pink carnations from
a plant which he found hidden among the
marigolds. He tied it up with black cotton
and laid it on Mademoiselle's plate. She smiled
and looked quite handsome as she stuck the
flowers in her belt.

"Do you think it's quite decent," Jimmy
asked later — " sort of bribing people to let you
do as you like with flowers and things and
passing them the salt ? "

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 21

" It's not that," said Kathleen suddenly. " /
know what Gerald means, only I never think
of the things in time myself. You see, if you
want grown-ups to be nice to you the least
you can do is to be nice to them and think of
little things to please them. I never think of
any myself. Jerry does ; that's why all the old
ladies like him. It's not bribery. It's a sort of
honesty — like paying for things."

"Well, anyway," said Jimmy, putting away
the moral question, " we've got a ripping day
for the woods."

They had.

The wide High Street, even at the busy
morning hour almost as quiet as a dream-
street, lay bathed in sunshine ; the leaves shone
fresh from last night's rain, but the road was
dry, and in the sunshine the very dust of it-
sparkled like diamonds. The beautiful old
houses, standing stout and strong, looked as
though they were basking in the sunshine and
enjoying it.

"But are there any woods?" asked Kathleen
as they passed the market-place.

" It doesn't much matter about woods," said
Gerald dreamily, " we're sure to find something.
One of the chaps told me his father said when
he was a boy there used to be a little cave
under the bank in a lane near the Salisbury
Road ; but he said there was an enchanted
castle there too, so perhaps the cave isn't true
either."

"If we were to get horns," said Kathleen,

22 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

"and to blow them very hard all the way, we
might find a magic castle."

" If you've got the money to throw away on
horns ..." said Jimmy contemptuously.

" Well, I have, as it happens, so there ! " said
Kathleen. And the horns were bought in a
tiny shop with a bulging window full of a
tangle of toys and sweets and cucumbers and
sour apples.

And the quiet square at the end of the town
where the church is, and the houses of the most
respectable people, echoed to the sound of horns
blown long and loud. But none of the houses
turned into enchanted castles.

So they went along the Salisbury Road.
which was very hot and dusty, so they agreed
to drink one of the bottles of gingerbeer.

" We might as well carry the gingerbeer
inside us as inside the bottle," said Jimmy, " and
we can hide the bottle and call for it as we come
back."

Presently they came to a place where the
road, as Gerald said, went two ways at once.

" That looks like adventures," said Kathleen ;
and they took the right-hand road, and the next
time they took a turning it was a left-hand one,
so as to be quite fair, Jimmy said, and then
a right-hand one and then a left, and so on, till
they were completely lost.

" Completely," said Kathleen ; " how jolly ! "

And now trees arched overhead, and the
banks of the road were high and bushy. The
adventurers had long since ceased to blow their

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 23

horns. It was too tiring* to go on doing that,
when there was no one to be annoyed by it.

" Oh, kriky!" observed Jimmy suddenly, " let's
sit down a bit and have some of our dinner.
We might call it lunch, you know," he added
persuasively.

So they sat down in the hedge and ate the
ripe red gooseberries that were to have been
their dessert.

And as they sat and rested and wished that
their boots did not feel so full of feet, Gerald
leaned back against the bushes, and the bushes
gave way so that he almost fell over backward.
Something had yielded to the pressure of his
back, and there was the sound of something
heavy that fell.

" O Jimminy ! " he remarked, recovering him-
self suddenly ; " there's something hollow in
there — the stone I was leaning against simply
ivent ! "

" I wish it was a cave," said Jimmy ; "but of
course it isn't."

"If Ave blow the horns perhaps it will be,"
said Kathleen, and hastily blew her own.

Gerald reached his hand through the bushes.
" I can't feel anything but air," he said ; " it's
just a hole full of emptiness." The other two
pulled back the bushes. There certainly was
a hole in the bank. " I'm going to go in,"
observed Gerald.

" Oh, don't ! " said his sister. " I wish you
wouldn't. Suppose there were snakes ! "

"Not likely," said Gerald, but he leaned

24 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

forward and struck a match. " It is a cave ! "
he cried, and put his knee on the mossy stone
he had been sitting on, scrambled over it, and
disappeared.

A breathless pause followed.

" You all right ? " asked Jimmy.

" Yes ; come on. You'd better come feet first
— there's a bit of a drop."

" I'll go next," said Kathleen, and went — feet
first, as advised. The feet waved wildly in the
air.

" Look out ! " said Gerald in the dark ; " you'll
have my eye out. Put your feet down, girl,
not up. It's no use trying to fly here — there's
no room."

He helped her by pulling her feet forcibly
down and then lifting her under the arms.
She felt rustling dry leaves under her boots,
and stood ready to receive Jimmy, who came
in head first, like one diving into an unknown
sea.

" It is a cave," said Kathleen.

" The young explorers," explained Gerald,
blocking up the hole of entrance with his
shoulders, " dazzled at first by the darkness of
the cave, could see nothing."

" Darkness doesn't dazzle," said Jimmy.

" I wish we'd got a candle," said Kathleen.

" Yes, it does," Gerald contradicted — " could
see nothing. But their dauntless leader, whose
eyes had grown used to the dark while the
clumsy forms of the others were bunging up
the entrance, had made a discovery."

JIMMY CAME IN HEAD FIRST, LIKE ONE DIVING
INTO AN UNKNOWN SEA.

26 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" Oh, what ! " Both the others were used to
Gerald's way of telling a story while he acted
it, but they did sometimes wish that he didn't
talk quite so long and so like a book in
moments of excitement.

" He did not reveal the dread secret to his
faithful followers till one and all had given him
their word of honour to be calm."

" We'll be calm all right," said Jimmy im-
patiently.

" Well, then," said Gerald, ceasing suddenly to
be a book and becoming a boy, " there's a light
over there —-look behind you ! "

They looked. And there was. A faint grey-
ness on the brown walls of the cave, and a
brighter greyness cut off sharply by a dark line,
showed that round a turning or angle of the
cave there was daylight.

" Attention ! " said Gerald ; at least, that was
what he meant, though what he said was
" 'Shun ! " as becomes the son of a soldier.
The others mechanically obeyed.

" You will remain at attention till I give the
word ' Slow march ! ' on which you will advance
cautiously in open order, following your hero
leader, taking care not to tread on the dead
and wounded."

" I wish you wouldn't ! " said Kathleen.

" There aren't any," said Jimmy, feeling for
her hand in the dark ; " he only means, take
care not to tumble over stones and things."

Here he found her hand, and she screamed.

" It's only me," said Jimmy. " I thought

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 27

you'd like me to hold it. But you're just like
a girl.

Their eyes had now begun to get accustomed
to the darkness, and all could see that they
were in a rough stone cave, that went straight
on for about three or four yards and then
turned sharply to the light.

" Death or victory ! " remarked Gerald. " Now,
then — Slow march ! "

He advanced carefully, picking his way among
the loose earth and stones that were the floor
of the cave. " A sail, a sail ! " he cried, as he
turned the corner.

" How splendid ! " Kathleen drew a long
breath as she came out into the sunshine.

"I don't see any sail," said Jimmy, following.

The narrow passage ended in a round arch
all fringed with ferns and creepers. They
passed through the arch into a deep, narrow
gully whose banks were of stones, moss-
covered ; and in the crannies grew more ferns
and long grasses. Trees growing on the top
of the bank arched across, and the sunlight
came through in changing patches of bright-
ness, turning the gully to a roofed corridor of
goldy-green. The path, which was of greeny-
grey flagstones where heaps of leaves had
drifted, sloped steeply down, and at the end
of it was another round arch, quite dark in-
side, above which rose rocks and grass and
bushes.

" It's like the outside of a railway tunnel,"
said James.

28 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" It's the entrance to the enchanted castle,"
said Kathleen. " Let's blow the horns."

" Dry up ! " said Gerald. " The bold Captain,
reproving the silly chatter of his subor-
dinates "

" I like that ! " said Jimmy, indignant.

" I thought you would," resumed Gerald — " of
his subordinates, bade them advance with caution
and in silence, because after all there might be
somebody about, and the other arch might be an
ice-house or something dangerous."

" What ? " asked Kathleen anxiously.

" Bears, perhaps," said Gerald briefly.

" There aren't any bears without bars — in
England, anyway," said Jimmy. " They call
bears bars in America," he added absently.

" Quick march ! " was Gerald's only reply.

And they marched. Under the drifted damp
leaves the path was firm and stony to their
shuffling feet. At the dark arch they stopped.

" There are steps down," said Jimmy.

" It is an ice-house," said Gerald.

" Don't let's," said Kathleen.

" Our hero," said Gerald, " who nothing could
dismay, raised the faltering hopes of his abject
minions by saying that he was jolly well
going on, and they could do as they liked
about it."

" If you call names," said Jimmy, " you can go
on by yourself." He added, " So there ! "

" It's part of the game, silly," explained Gerald
kindly. "You can be Captain to-morrow, so
you'd better hold your jaw now, and begin to

" it's the entrance to the enchanted castle,"
said kathleen.

30 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

think about what names you'll call us when it's
your turn."

Very slowly and carefully they went down the
steps. A vaulted stone arched over their heads.
Gerald struck a match when the last step was
found to have no edge, and to be, in fact, the
beginning of a passage, turning to the left.

" This," said Jimmy, " will take us back into
the road."

" Or under it," said Gerald. " We've come
down eleven steps."

They 'went on, following their leader, who
went very slowly for fear, as he explained, of
steps. The passage was very dark.

" I don't half like it ! " whispered Jimmy.

Then came a glimmer of daylight that grew
and grew, and presently ended in another arch
that looked out over a scene so like a picture
out of a book about Italy that every one's
breath was taken away, and they simply
walked forward silent and staring. A short
avenue of cypresses led, widening as it went,
to a marble terrace that lay broad and white
in the sunlight. The children, blinking, leaned
their arms on the broad, flat balustrade and
gazed. Immediately below them was a lake —
just like a lake in "The Beauties of Italy" — a
lake with swans and an island and weeping
willows ; beyond it were green slopes dotted
with groves of trees, and amid the trees
gleamed the white limbs of statues. Against a
little hill to the left was a round white building
with pillars, and to the right a waterfall came

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 31

tumbling down among mossy stones to splash
into the lake. Steps led from the terrace to
the water, and other steps to the green lawns
beside it. Away across the grassy slopes deer
were feeding, and in the distance where the
groves of trees thickened into what looked
almost a forest were enormous shapes of grey
stone, like nothing that the children had ever
seen before.

" That chap at school " said Gerald.

" It is an enchanted castle," said Kathleen.

" I don't see any castle," said Jimmy.

" What do you call that, then ? " Gerald
pointed to where, beyond a belt of lime-trees,
white towers and turrets broke the blue of
the sky.

"There doesn't seem to be any one about,"
said Kathleen, " and yet it's all so tidy. I
believe it is magic."

" Magic mowing machines," Jimmy suggested.

" If we were in a book it would be an
enchanted castle — certain to be," said Kathleen.

" It is an enchanted castle," said Gerald in
hollow tones.

" But there aren't any." Jimmy was quite
positive.

"How do you know? Do you think there's
nothing in the world but what you've seen ? "
His scorn was crushing.

" I think magic went out when people began
to have steam-engines," Jimmy insisted, "and
newspapers, and telephones and wireless tele-
graphing."

0?

32 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

"Wireless is rather like magic when you come
to think of it," said Gerald.

" Oh, that sort ! " Jimmy's contempt was
deep.

"Perhaps there's given up being magic
because people didn't believe in it any more,"
said Kathleen.

" Well, don't let's spoil the show with any
silly old not believing," said Gerald with
decision. " I'm going to believe in magic as
hard as I can. This is an enchanted garden,
and that's an enchanted castle, and I'm jolly
well going to explore. The dauntless knight
then led the way, leaving his ignorant squires
to follow or not, just as they jolly well chose."
He rolled off the balustrade and strode firmly
down towards the lawn, his boots making, as
they went, a clatter full of determination.

The others followed. There never was such
a garden — out of a picture or a fairy tale.
They passed quite close by the deer, who only
raised their pretty heads to look, and did not
seem startled at all. And after a long stretch
of turf they passed under the heaped-up heavy
masses of lime-trees and came into a rose-
garden, bordered with thick, close-cut yew
hedges, and lying red and pink and green and
white in the sun, like a giant's many-coloured,
highly-scented pocket-handkerchief.

" I know we shall meet a gardener in a
minute, and he'll ask what we're doing here.
And then what will you say ? " Kathleen asked
with her nose in a rose.

"this is an enchanted garden and that's an enchanted castle.'

3

34 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" I shall say we've lost our way, and it will
be quite true," said Gerald.

But they did not meet a gardener or anybody
else, and the feeling of magic got thicker and
thicker, till they were almost afraid of the
sound of their feet in the great silent place.
Beyond the rose garden was a yew hedge with
an arch cut in it, and it was the beginning of
a maze like the one in Hampton Court.

" Now," said Gerald, "you mark my words.
In the middle of this maze we shall find the
secret enchantment. Draw your swords, my
merry men all, and hark forward tallyho in
the utmost silence."

Which they did.

It was very hot in the maze, between the
close yew hedges, and the way to the maze's
heart w r as hidden well. Again and again they
found themselves at the black yew arch that
opened on the rose garden, and they were all
glad that they had brought large, clean pocket-
handkerchiefs with them.

It was when they found themselves there for
the fourth time that Jimmy suddenly cried,

" Oh, I wish " and then stopped short very

suddenly. "Oh!" he added in quite a different
voice, " where's the dinner?" And then in a
stricken silence they all remembered that the
basket with the dinner had been left at the
entrance of the cave. Their thoughts dwelt
fondly on the slices of cold mutton, the six
tomatoes, the bread and butter, the screwed-
up paper of salt, the apple turnovers, and the

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 35

little thick glass that one drank the gingerbeer
out of.

" Let's go back," said Jimmy, " now this
minute, and get our things and have our
dinner."

" Let's have one more try at the maze. I hate
giving things up," said Gerald.

" I am so hungry ! " said Jimmy.

" Why didn't you say so before ? " asked
Gerald bitterly.

" I wasn't before."

" Then you can't be now. You don't get
hungry all in a minute. What's that?"

" That " was a gleam of red that lay at the
foot of the yew hedge— a thin little line, that
you would hardly have noticed unless you had
been staring in a fixed and angry way at the
roots of the hedge.

It was a thread of cotton. Gerald picked it
up. One end of it was tied to a thimble with
holes in it, and the other

" There is no other end," said Gerald, with
firm triumph. " It's a clue — that's what it is.
What price cold mutton now? I've always
felt something magic would happen some day,
and now it has."

" I expect the gardener put it there," said
Jimmy.

" With a Princess's silver thimble on it ?
Look ! there's a crown on the thimble."

There was.

"Come," said Gerald in low, urgent tones,
"if you are adventurers be adventurers; and

36 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

anyhow, I expect some one has gone along the
road and bagged the mutton hours ago."

He walked forward, winding the red thread
round his fingers as he went. And it was a
clue, and it led them right into the middle
of the maze. And in the very middle of the
maze they came upon the wonder.

The red clue led them up two stone steps to a
round grass plot. There was a sun-dial in the
middle, and all round against the yew hedge
a low, wide marble seat. The red clue ran
straight across the grass and by the sun-dial,
and ended in a small brown hand with jewelled
rings on every finger. The hand was, naturally,
attached to an arm, and that had many brace-
lets on it, sparkling with red and blue and green
stones. The arm wore a sleeve of pink and gold
brocaded silk, faded a little here and there but
still extremely imposing, and the sleeve was
part of a dress, which was worn by a lady who
lay on the stone seat asleep in the sun. The
rosy gold dress fell open over an embroidered
petticoat of a soft green colour. There was old
yellow lace the colour of scalded cream, and
a thin white veil spangled with silver stars
covered the face.

" It's the enchanted Princess," said Gerald,
now really impressed. " I told you so."

" It's the Sleeping Beauty," said Kathleen.
" It is — look how old-fashioned her clothes are,
like the pictures of Marie Antoinette's ladies in
the history book. She has slept for a hundred
years. Oh, Gerald, you're the eldest ; you must
be the Prince, and we never knew it."

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38 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" She isn't really a Princess," said Jimmy.
But the others laughed at him, partly because
his saying things like that was enough to spoil
any game, and partly because they really were
not at all sure that it was not a Princess who
lay there as still as the sunshine. Every stage
of the adventure — the cave, the wonderful
gardens, the maze, the clue, had deepened the
feeling of magic, till now Kathleen and Gerald
were almost completely bewitched.

" Lift the veil up, Jerry," said Kathleen in a
whisper ; "if she isn't beautiful we shall know
she can't be the Princess."

" Lift it yourself," said Gerald.

"I expect you're forbidden to touch the
figures," said Jimmy.

" It's not wax, silly," said his brother.

" No," said his sister, " wax wouldn't be much
good in this sun. And, besides, you can see her
breathing. It's the Princess right enough." She
very gently lifted the edge of the veil and
turned it back. The Princess's face was small
and white between long plaits of black hair.
Her nose was straight and her brows finely
traced. There were a few freckles on cheek-
bones and nose.

"No wonder," whispered Kathleen, "sleeping
all these years in all this sun ! " Her mouth
was not a rosebud. But all the same —

" Isn't she lovely !" Kathleen murmured.

" Not so dusty," Gerald was understood to reply.

"Now, Jerry," said Kathleen firmly, "you're
the eldest."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 39

" Of course I am," said Gerald uneasily.
" Well, you've got to wake the Princess."
" She's not a Princess," said Jimmy, with his
hands in the pockets of his knickerbockers ;
"she's only a little girl dressed up."

" But she's in long dresses," urged Kathleen.
"Yes, but look what a little way down her
frock her feet come. She wouldn't be any taller
than Jerry if she was to stand up."

" Now then," urged Kathleen. " Jerry, don't
be silly. You've got to do it."

" Do what? " asked Gerald, kicking his left boot
with his right.

" Why, kiss her awake, of course."
" Not me ! " was Gerald's unhesitating re-
joinder.

" Well, some one's got to."

" She'd go for me as likely as not the minute
she woke up," said Gerald anxiously.

" I'd do it like a shot," said Kathleen, " but I
don't suppose it ucl make any difference me
kissing her."

She did it ; and it didn't. The Princess still
lay in deep slumber.

"Then you must, Jimmy. I daresay you'll
do. Jump back quickly before she can hit you."
" She won't hit him, he's such a little chap,"
said Gerald.

" Little yourself ! " said Jimmy. " /don't mind
kissing her. I'm not a coward, like Some People.
Only if I do, I'm going to be the dauntless leader
for the rest of the day."

" No, look here — hold on ! " cried Gerald,

THE THREE STOOD BREATHLESS, AWAITING THE RESULT.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 41

" perhaps I'd better But, in the meantime,

Jimmy had planted a loud, cheerful-sounding
kiss on the Princess's pale cheek, and now the
three stood breathless, awaiting the result.

And the result was that the Princess opened
large, dark eyes, stretched out her arms, yawned
a little, covering her mouth with a small brown
hand, and said, quite plainly and distinctly, and
without any room at all for mistake : —

"Then the hundred years are over? How the
yew hedges have grown ! Which of you is my
Prince that aroused me from my deep sleep of so
many long years ? "

" I did," said Jimmy fearlessly, for she did not
look as though she were going to slap any one.

" My noble preserver ! " said the Princess, and
held out her hand. Jimmy shook it vigorously.

" But I say," said he, " you aren't really a
Princess, are you V "

" Of course I am," she answered ; " who else
could I be ? Look at my crown ! " She pulled
aside the spangled veil, and showed beneath it
a coronet of what even Jimmy could not help
seeing to be diamonds.

" But " said Jimmy.

" Why," she said, opening her eyes very wide,
" you must have known about my being here, or
you'd never have come. How did you get past
the dragons ? "

Gerald ignored the question. " I say," he said,
" do you really believe in magic, and all that ? "

" I ought to," she said, " if anybody does.
Look, here's the place where I pricked my finger

42 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

with the spindle." She showed a little scar on
her wrist.

" Then this really is an enchanted castle? "

" Of course it is," said the Princess. " How
stupid you are ! " She stood up, and her pink
brocaded dress lay in bright waves about her
feet.

" I said her dress would be too long," said
Jimmy.

" It was the right length when I went to
sleep," said the Princess ; " it must have grown
in the hundred years."

" I don't believe you're a Princess at all," said
Jimmy ; " at least "

" Don't bother about believing it, if you don't
like," said the Princess. " It doesn't so much
matter what you believe as what I am." She
turned to the others.

" Let's go back to the castle," she said, " and
I'll show you all my lovely jewels and things.
Wouldn't you like that ? "

" Yes," said Gerald with very plain hesitation.
" But "

"But what?" The Princess's tone was im-
patient.

" But we're most awfully hungry."

" Oh, so am I ! " cried the Princess.

" We've had nothing to eat since breakfast."

" And it's three now," said the Princess,
looking at the sun-dial. " Why, you've had
nothing to eat for hours and hours and hours.
But think of me! I haven't had anything to eat
for a hundred years. Come along to the castle."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 43

" The mice will have eaten everything," said
Jimmy sadly. He saw now that she really trds
a Princess.

" Not they," cried the Princess joyously.
"You forget everything's enchanted here.
Time simply stood still for a hundred years.
Come along, and one of you must carry my
train, or I shan't he able to move now it's grown
such a frightful length."

CHAPTER II

When you are young so many things are
difficult to believe, and yet the dullest people
will tell you that they are true — such things,
for instance, as that the earth goes round
the sun, and that it is not flat but round.
But the things that seem really likely, like
fairy-tales and magic, are, so say the grown-
ups, not true at all. Yet they are so easy
to believe, especially when you see them
happening. And, as I am always telling you,
the most wonderful things happen to all sorts
of people, only you never hear about them
because the people think that no one will
believe their stories, and so they don't tell
them to any one except me. And they tell
me, because they know that I can believe
anything.

When Jimmy had awakened the Sleeping
Princess, and she had invited the three children
to go with her to her palace and get something
to eat, they all knew quite surely that they
had come into a place of magic happenings.
And they walked in a slow procession along
the grass towards the castle. The Princess

44

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 45

went first, and Kathleen carried her shining
train ; then came Jimmy, and Gerald came
last. They were all quite sure that they had
walked right into the middle of a fairy tale,
and they were the more ready to helieve
it because they were so tired and hungry.
They were, in fact, so hungry and tired that
they hardly noticed where they were going,
or observed the beauties of the formal gardens
through which the pink-silk Princess was lead-
ing them. They were in a sort of dream,
from which they only partially awakened to
find themselves in a big hall, with suits of
armour and old flags round the walls, the
skins of beasts on the floor, and heavy oak
tables and benches ranged along it.

The Princess entered, slow and stately, but
once inside she twitched her sheeny train out
of Jimmy's hand and turned to the three.

" You just wait here a minute," she said,
" and mind you don't talk while I'm away.
This castle is crammed with magic, and I
don't know what will happen if you talk."
And with that, picking* up the thick goldy-
pink folds under her arms, she ran out, as
Jimmy said afterwards, " most unprincesslike,"
showing as she ran black stockings and black
strap shoes.

Jimmy wanted very much to say that he
didn't believe anything would happen, only he
was afraid something would happen if he did,
so he merely made a face and put out his
tongue. The others pretended not to see this,

46 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

which was much more crushing than anything
they could have said. So they sat in silence,
and Gerald ground the heel of his boot upon
the marble floor. Then the Princess came back,
very slowly and kicking her long skirts in front
of her at every step. She could not hold them
up now because of the tray she carried.

It was not a silver tray, as you might have
expected, but an oblong tin one. She set it
down noisily on the end of the long table and
breathed a sigh of relief.

" Oh ! it was heavy," she said. I don't know
what fairy feast the children's fancy had been
busy with. Anyhow, this was nothing like it.
The heavy tray held a loaf of bread, a lump of
cheese, and a brown jug of water. The rest of
its heaviness was just plates and mugs and
knives.

fc ' Come along," said the Princess hospitably.
"I couldn't find anything but bread and cheese
— but it doesn't matter, because everything's
magic here, and unless you have some dreadful
secret fault the bread and cheese will turn into
anything you like. What would you like ? " she
asked Kathleen.

" Roast chicken," said Kathleen, without hesi-
tation.

The pinky Princess cut a slice of bread and
laid it on a dish. " There you are," she said,
" roast chicken. Shall I carve it, or will
you ?

" You, please," said Kathleen, and received
a piece of dry bread on a plate.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 47

" Green peas ? " asked the Princess, cut a
piece of cheese and laid it beside the bread.

Kathleen began to eat the bread, cutting it
up with knife and fork as you would eat
chicken. It was no use owning that she didn't
see any chicken and peas, or anything but cheese
and dry bread, because that would be owning
that she had some dreadful secret fault.

" If I have, it is a secret, even from me," she
told herself.

The others asked for roast beef and cabbage —
and got it, she supposed, though to her it only
looked like dry bread and Dutch cheese.

" I do wonder what my dreadful secret fault
is," she thought, as the Princess remarked that,
as for her, she could fancy a slice of roast
peacock. " This one," she added, lifting a
second mouthful of dry bread on her fork, "is
quite delicious."

"It's a game, isn't it?" asked Jimmy sud-
denly.

" What's a game ? " asked the Princess, frown-
ing.

" Pretending it's beef — the bread and cheese,
I mean."

" A game ? But it is beef. Look at it,"
said the Princess, opening her eyes very wide.

"Yes, of course," said Jimmy feebly. "I was
only joking."

Bread and cheese is not perhaps so good as
roast beef or chicken or peacock (I'm not sure
about the j)eacock. I never tasted peacock,
did you ?) ; but bread and cheese is, at any rate,

^=7* <

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 49

very much better than nothing when you have
gone on having nothing since breakfast (goose-
berries and gingerbeer hardly count) and it is
long past your proper dinner-time. Every one
ate and drank and felt much better.

" Now," said the Princess, brushing the bread-
crumbs off her green silk lap, " if you're sure
you won't have any more meat you can come
and see my treasures. Sure you won't take
the least bit more chicken ? No ? Then follow
me.

She got up and they followed her down the
long hall to the end where the great stone
stairs ran up at each side and joined in a broad
flight leading to the gallery above. Under the
stairs was a hanging of tapestry.

" Beneath this arras," said the Princess, " is
the door leading to my private apartments."
She held the tapestry up with both hands, for
it was heavy, and showed a little door that
had been hidden by it.

" The key," she said, " hangs above."

And so it did, on a large rusty nail.

" Put it in," said the Princess, " and turn it."

Gerald did so, and the great key creaked and
grated in the lock.

" Now push," she said ; " push hard, all of
you."

They pushed hard, all of them. The door
gave way, and they fell over each other into
the dark space beyond.

The Princess dropped the curtain and came
after them, closing the door behind her.

4

50 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

"Lookout!" she said; "look out! there are
two steps down."

" Thank you," said Gerald, rubbing his knee
at the bottom of the steps. " We found that
out for ourselves."

" I'm sorry," said the Princess, " but you can't
have hurt yourselves much. Go straight on.
There aren't any more steps."

They went straight on — in the dark.

" When you come to the door just turn the
handle and go in. Then stand still till I find
the matches. I know where they are."

" Did they have matches a hundred years
ago ? " asked Jimmy.

" I meant the tinder-box," said the Princess
quickly. " We always called it the matches.
Don't you ? Here, let me go first."

She did, and when they had reached the door
she was waiting for them with a candle in her
hand. She thrust it on Gerald.

" Hold it steady," she said, and undid the
shutters of a long window, so that first a
yellow streak and then a blazing great oblong
of light flashed at them and the room was full
of sunshine.

" It makes the candle look quite silly," said
Jimmy.

" So it does," said the Princess, and blew out
the candle. Then she took the key from the
outside of the door, put it in the inside key-
hole, and turned it.

The room they were in was small and high.
Its domed ceiling was of deep blue with gold

SHE WAS WAITING FOR THEM WITH A CANDLE IN HER HAND.

52 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

stars painted on it. The walls were of wood,
panelled and carved, and there was no furniture
in it whatever.

" This," said the Princess, " is my treasure
chamber."

" But where," asked Kathleen politely, " are
the treasures ? "

"Don't you see them?" asked the Princess.

" No, we don't," said Jimmy bluntly. " You
don't come that bread-and-cheese game with
me — not twice over, you don't ! "

"If you really don't see them," said the
Princess, " I suppose I shall have to say the
charm. Shut your eyes, please. And give me
your word of honour you won't look till I tell
you, and that you'll never tell any one what
you've seen."

Their words of honour were something that
the children would rather not have given just
then, but they gave them all the same, and
shut their eyes tight.

" Wiggadil yougadoo begadee leegadeeve
nowgadow ? " said the Princess rapidly ; and
they heard the swish of her silk train moving
across the room. Then there was a creaking,
rustling noise.

" She's locking us in ! " cried Jimmy.
" Your word of honour," gasped Gerald.
" Oh, do be quick ! " moaned Kathleen.
" You may look," said the voice of the
Princess. And they looked. The room was
not the same room, yet — yes, the starry-vaulted
blue ceiling was there, and below it half a dozen

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 53

feet of the dark panelling, but below that the
walls of the room blazed and sparkled with
white and bine and red and green and gold and
silver. Shelves ran round the room, and on them
were gold cnps and silver dishes, and platters
and goblets set with gems, ornaments of gold
and silver, tiaras of diamonds, necklaces of
rubies, strings of emeralds and pearls, all set
out in unimaginable splendour against a back-
ground of faded blue velvet. It was like the
Crown jewels that you see when your kind uncle
takes you to the Tower, only there seemed to
be far more jewels than you or any one else has
ever seen together at the Tower or anywhere else.

The three children remained breathless, open-
mouthed, staring at the sparkling splendours all
about them, while the Princess stood, her arm
stretched out in a gesture of command, and
a proud smile on her lips.

" My word ! " said Gerald, in a low whisper.
But no one spoke out loud. They waited as if
spellbound for the Princess to speak.

She spoke.

" What price bread-and-cheese games now ? "
she asked triumphantly. " Can I do magic, or
can't I ? "

You can ; oh, you can ! " said Kathleen.

" May we — may we touch ? " asked Gerald.

" All that is mine is yours," said the Princess,
with a generous wave of her brown hand, and
added quickly, " Only, of course, you mustn't take
anything away with you."

" We're not thieves ! " said Jimmy. The others

54 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

were already busy turning over the wonderful
things on the blue velvet shelves.

" Perhaps not," said the Princess, " but you're
a very unbelieving little boy. You think I can't
see inside you, but I can. / know what you've
been thinking."

" What ? " asked Jimmy.

" Oh, you know well enough," said the Princess.
" You're thinking about the bread and cheese
that I changed into beef, and about your secret
fault. I say, let's all dress up and you be princes
and princesses too."

" To crown our hero," said Gerald, lifting a
gold crown with a cross on the top, " was the
work of a moment." He put the crown on his
head, and added a collar of SS and a zone of
sparkling emeralds, which would not quite meet
round his middle. He turned from fixing it
by an ingenious adaptation of his belt to find
the others already decked with diadems, neck-
laces, and rings.

" How splendid you look ! " said the Princess,
"and how I wish your clothes were prettier.
What ugly clothes people wear nowadays ! A
hundred years ago "

Kathleen stood quite still with a diamond
bracelet raised in her hand.

" I say," she said. " The King and Queen ? "

" What King and Queen ? " asked the Princess.

" Your father and mother, your sorrowing
parents," said Kathleen. " They'll have waked
up by now. Won't they be wanting to see you,
after a hundred years, you know ? "

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 55

" Oh — ah — yes," said the Princess slowly. " I
embraced my rejoicing parents when I got the
bread and cheese. They're having their dinner.
They won't expect me yet. Here," she added,
hastily putting a ruby bracelet on Kathleen's
arm, " see how splendid that is ! "

Kathleen would have been quite content to go
on all day trying on different jewels and looking
at herself in the little silver-framed mirror that
the Princess took from one of the shelves, but
the boys were soon weary of this amusement.

" Look here," said Gerald, " if you're sure your
father and mother won't want you, let's go out
and have a jolly good game of something. You
could play besieged castles awfully well in that
maze — unless you can do any more magic
tricks."

"You forget," said the Princess, "I'm grown
up. I don't play games, And I don't like to do
too much magic at a time, it's so tiring. Be-
sides, it'll take us ever so long to put all these
things back in their proper places."

It did. The children would have laid the
jewels just anywhere ; but the Princess showed
them that every necklace, or ring, or bracelet
had its own home on the velvet — a slight
hollowing in the shelf beneath, so that each
stone fitted into its own little nest.

As Kathleen was fitting the last shining
ornament into its proper place, she saw that
part of the shelf near it held, not bright
jewels, but rings and brooches and chains, as
well as queer things that she did not know

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 57

the names of, and all were of dull metal and
odd shapes.

" What's all this rubbish ? " she asked.

"Rubbish, indeed!" said the Princess. "Why
those are all magic things ! This bracelet — any
one who wears it has got to speak the truth.
This chain makes you as strong as ten men ; if
you wear this spur your horse will go a mile a
minute ; or if you're walking it's the same as
seven-league boots."

"What does this brooch do?" asked Kathleen,
reaching out her hand. The Princess caught her
by the wrist.

" You mustn't touch," she said ; " if any one
but me touches them all the magic goes out at
once and never comes back. That brooch will
give you any wish you like."

" And this ring ? " Jimmy pointed.

" Oh, that makes you invisible."

"What's this'?" asked Gerald, showing a
curious buckle.

" Oh, that undoes the effect of all the other
charms."

" Do you mean really ! " Jimmy asked.
" You're not just kidding ? "

" Kidding indeed ! " repeated the Princess
scornfully. " I should have thought I'd shown
you enough magic to prevent you speaking to
a Princess like that ! "

" I say," said Gerald, visibly excited. " You
might show us how some of the things act.
Couldn't you give us each a wish ? "

The Princess did not at once answer. And

58 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

the minds of the three played -with granted
wishes— brilliant yet thoroughly reasonable —
the kind of wish that never seems to occur to
people in fairy tales when they suddenly get a
chance to have their three wishes granted.

" No," said the Princess suddenly, "no; I can't
give wishes to you, it only gives me wishes.
But I'll let you see the ring make me invisible.
Only you must shut your eyes while I do it."

They shut them.

" Count fifty," said the Princess, " and then
you may look. And then you must shut them
again, and count fifty, and I'll reappear."

Gerald counted, aloud. Through the counting
one could hear a creaking, rustling sound.

"Forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty!"
said Gerald, and they opened their eyes.

They were alone in the room. The jewels had
vanished and so had the Princess.

" She's gone out by the door, of course," said
Jimmy, but the door was locked.

" That is magic," said Kathleen breathlessly.

" Maskelyne and Devant can do that trick,"
said Jimmy. " And I want my tea."

" Your tea ! " Gerald's tone was full of con-
tempt. "The lovely Princess," he went on,
" reappeared as soon as our hero had finished
counting fifty. One, two, three, four "

Gerald and Kathleen had both closed their
eyes. But somehow Jimmy hadn't. He didn't
mean to cheat, he just forgot. And as Gerald's
count reached twenty he saw a panel under the
window open slowly.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 59

"Her," ho said to himself. "I knew it was
a trick ! " and at once shut his eyes, like an
honourable little boy.

On the word "fifty" six eyes opened. And
the panel was closed and there was no Princess.

" She hasn't pulled it off this time," said
Gerald.

" Perhaps you'd better count again," said
Kathleen.

" I believe there's a cupboard under the
window," said Jimmy, " and she's hidden in it.
Secret panel, you know."

" You looked ! that's cheating," said the voice
of the Princess so close to his ear that he quite
jumped.

" I didn't cheat."

" Where on earth What ever- " said all

three together. For still there was no Princess
to be seen.

" Come back visible, Princess dear," said
Kathleen. " Shall Ave shut our eyes and count
again r

" Don't be silly ! " said the voice of the Princess,
and it sounded very cross.

" We're not silly," said Jimmy, and his voice
was cross too. " Why can't you come back and
have done with it? You know you're only
hiding."

"Don't!" said Kathleen gently. "She is in-
visible, you know."

" So should I be if I got into the cupboard,"
said Jimmy.

" Oh yes," said the sneering tone of the

60 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

Princess, " you think yourselves very clever, I
dare say. But / don't mind. We'll play that
you cant see me, if you like."

" Well, but we cant" said Gerald. " It's no use
getting in a wax. If you're hiding, as Jimmy
says, you'd better come out. If you've really
turned invisible, you'd better make yourself
visible again."

" Do you really mean," asked a voice quite
changed, but still the Princess's, " that you caiit
see me ? "

" Can't you see we can't? " asked Jimmy rather
unreasonably.

The sun was blazing in at the window ; the
eight-sided room was very hot, and every one
was getting cross.

" You can't see me ? " There was the sound of
a sob in the voice of the invisible Princess.

" No, I tell you," said Jimmy, " and I want my
tea — and "

What he was saying was broken off short, as
one might break a stick of sealing wax. And
then in the golden afternoon a really quite
horrid thing happened : Jimmy suddenly leaned
backwards, then forwards, his eyes opened wide
and his mouth too. Backward and forward he
went, very quickly and abruptly, then stood still.

" Oh, he's in a fit ! Oh, Jimmy, dear Jimmy ! "
cried Kathleen, hurrying to him. " What is it,
dear, what is it ? "

" It's not a fit," gasped Jimmy angrily. " She
shook me."

" Yes," said the voice of the Princess, " and

BACKWARD AND FORWARD HE WENT.

62 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

I'll shake him again if he keeps on saying he
can't see me."

" You'd better shake ?ne," said Gerald angrily.
" I'm nearer your own size."

And instantly she did. But not for long.
The moment Gerald felt hands on his shoulders
he put up his own and caught those other hands
by the wrists. And there he was, holding wrists
that he couldn't see. It was a dreadful sensa-
tion. An invisible kick made him wince, but
he held tight to the wrists.

" Cathy," he cried, " come and hold her legs ;
she's kicking me."

" Where ? " cried Kathleen, anxious to help.
" I don't see any legs."

" This is her hands I've got," cried Gerald.
" She is invisible right enough. Get hold of this
hand, and then you can feel your way down to
her legs."

Kathleen did so. I wish I could make you
understand how very, very uncomfortable and
frightening it is to feel, in broad daylight,
hands and arms that you can't see.

" 1 wont have you hold my legs," said the
invisible Princess, struggling violently.

" What are you so cross about? " Gerald was
quite calm. "You said you'd be invisible, and
you are."

" I'm not."

"You are really. Look in the glass.

" I'm not ; I can't be."

"Look in the glass," Gerald repeated, quite
unmoved.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 63

" Let go, then," she said.

Gerald did, and the moment he had done so
he found it impossible to believe that he really
had been holding invisible hands.

" You're just pretending- not to see me," said
the Princess anxiously, " aren't you ? Do say
you are. You've had your joke with me. Don't
keep it up. I don't like it."

" On our sacred word of honour," said Gerald,
"you're still invisible."

There was a silence. Then, " Come," said the
Princess. " I'll let you out, and you can go.
I'm tired of playing with you."

They followed her voice to the door, and
through it, and along the little passage into the
hall. No one said anything. Every one felt
very uncomfortable.

"Let's get out of this," whispered Jimmy as
they got to the end of the hall.

But the voice of the Princess said : " Come
out this way ; it's quicker. I think you're per-
fectly hateful. I'm sorry I ever played with
you. Mother always told me not to play with
strange children."

A door abruptly opened, though no hand was
seen to touch it. " Come through, can't you ! "
said the voice of the Princess.

It was a little ante-room, with long, narrow
mirrors between its long, narrow windows.

" Goodbye," said Gerald. "Thanks for giving
us such a jolly time. Let's part friends," he
added, holding out his hand.

An unseen hand w r as slowly put in his, which
closed on it. vice-like.

64 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" Now," lie said, " you've jolly well got to look
in the glass and own that we're not liars."

He led the invisible Princess to one of the
mirrors, and held her in front of it by the
shoulders.

" Now," he said, " you just look for yourself."

There was a silence, and then a cry of despair
rang through the room.

" Oh — oh — oh ! I am invisible. Whatever
shall I do ? "

'• Take the ring off," said Kathleen, suddenly
practical.

Another silence.

" I cant ! " cried the Princess. " It won't come
off. But it can't be the ring ; rings don't make
you invisible."

" You said this one did," said Kathleen, " and
it has."

" But it caiit" said the Princess. " I was only
playing at magic. I just hid in the secret cup-
board — it was only a game. Oh, whatever shall
I do?"

" A game? " said Gerald slowly ; " but you can
do magic — the invisible jewels, and you made
them come visible."

" Oh, it's only a secret spring and the panel-
ling slides up. Oh, what am I to do ? "

Kathleen moved towards the voice and
gropingly got her arms round a pink-silk
waist that she couldn't see. Invisible arms
clasped her, a hot invisible cheek was laid
against hers, and warm invisible tears lay wet
between the two faces.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 65

" Don't cry, dear," said Kathleen ; " let me go
and tell the King and Queen."

"The ?"

" Your royal father and mother."

" Oh, dont mock me ! " said the poor Princess.
"You know that was only a game, too, like "

" Like the bread and cheese," said Jimmy
triumphantly. " I knew that was ! "

" But your dress and being asleep in the
maze, and "

" Oh, I dressed up for fun, because every
one's away at the fair, and I put the clue just
to make it all more real. I was playing at Fair
Rosamond first, and then I heard you talking
in the maze, and I thought what fun ; and now
I'm invisible, and I shall never come right again,
never — I know I shan't ! It serves me right for
lying, but I didn't really think you'd believe it —
not more than half, that is," she added hastily,
trying to be truthful.

" But if you're not the Princess, who are
you ? ' asked Kathleen, still embracing the
unseen.

" I'm — my aunt lives here," said the invisible
Princess. "She may be home any time. Oh,
what shall I do ? "

" Perhaps she knows some charm "

" Oh, nonsense ! " said the voice sharply ; " she
doesn't believe in charms. She would be so
vexed. Oh, I daren't let her see me like this ! "
she added wildly. " And all of you here, too
She'd be so dreadfully cross."

The beautiful magic castle that the children

66 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

had believed in now felt as though it were
tumbling about their ears. All that was left
was the invisibleness of the Princess. But that,
you will own, was a gcfod deal.

"I just said it," moaned the voice, "and it
came true. I wish I'd never played at magic —
I wish I'd never played at anything at all."

" Oh, don't say that," Gerald said kindly.
" Let's go out into the garden, near the lake,
where it's cool, and we'll hold a solemn council.
You'll like that, won't you ? "

"Oh!" cried Kathleen suddenly, "the buckle;
that makes magic come undone ! "

" It doesn't really" murmured the voice that
seemed to speak without lips. " I only just said
that."

" You only ' just said ' about the ring," said
Gerald. " Anyhow, let's try."

" Not you — me" said the voice. " You go
down to the Temple of Flora, by the lake.
I'll go back to the jewel-room by myself. Aunt
might see you."

" She won't see you" said Jimmy.

" Don't rub it in," said Gerald. " Where is
the Temple of Flora ? "

" That's the way," the voice said ; " down
those steps and along the winding path through
the shrubbery. You can't miss it. It's white
marble, with a statue goddess inside."

The three children went down to the white
marble Temple of Flora that stood close against
the side of the little hill, and sat down in its
shadowy inside. It had arches all round

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 67

except against the hill behind the statue, and
it was cool and restful.

They had not been there five minutes before
the feet of a runner sounded loud on the gravel.
A shadow, very black and distinct, fell on the
white marble floor.

" Your shadows not invisible anyhow," said
Jimmy.

" Oh, bother my shadow ! " the voice of the
Princess replied. " We left the key inside the
door, and it's shut itself with the wind, and it's
a spring lock ! "

There was a heartfelt pause.

Then Gerald said, in his most business-like
manner :

" Sit down, Princess, and we'll have a thorough
good palaver about it."

" I shouldn't wonder," said Jimmy, " if we was
to wake up and find it was dreams."

" No such luck," said the voice.

"Well," said Gerald, "first of all, what's
your name, and if you're not a Princess, who
are you ? "

" I'm — I'm," said a voice broken with sobs,
"I'm the — housekeeper's — niece — at — the — castle
— and my name's Mabel Prowse."

" That's exactly what I thought," said Jimmy,
without a shadow of truth, because how could
he ? The others were silent. It was a moment
full of agitation and confused ideas.

" Well, anyhow," said Gerald, " you belong
here."

fl Yes," said the voice, and it came from

"YOUR SHADOW'S NOT INVISIBLE, ANYHOW," SAID JIMMY,

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 69

the floor, as though its owner had flung
herself down in the madness of despair.
"Oh yes, I belong here right enough, but
what's the use of belonging anywhere if
you're invisible ? "

CHAPTER III

Those of my readers who have gone about
much with an invisible companion will not need
to be told how awkward the whole business is.
For one thing, however much you may have
been convinced that your companion is invisible,
you will, I feel sure, have found yourself every
now and then saying, " This must be a dream ! "
or "I know I shall wake up in half a sec ! " And
this was the case with Gerald, Kathleen, and
Jimmy as they sat in the white marble Temple
of Flora, looking out through its arches at the
sunshiny park and listening to the voice of
the enchanted Princess, who really was not a
Princess at all, but just the housekeeper's niece,
Mabel Prowse ; though, as Jimmy said, " she
was enchanted, right enough."

" It's no use talking," she said again and
again, and the voice came from an empty-look-
ing space between two pillars ; "I never believed
anything would happen, and now it has."

" Well," said Gerald kindly, " can we do
anything for you ? Because, if not, I think
we ought to be going."

" Yes," said Jimmy ; " I do want my tea ! "

70

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 71

" Tea ! " said the unseen Mabel scornfully.
" Do you mean to say you'd go off to your
teas and leave me after getting me into this
mess t

" Well, of all the unfair Princesses I ever
met ! " Gerald began. But Kathleen inter-
rupted.

" Oh, don't rag her," she said. " Think how
horrid it must be to be invisible ! "

" I don't think," said the hidden Mabel, " that
my aunt likes me very much as it is. She
wouldn't let me go to the fair because I'd
forgotten to put back some old trumpery
shoe that Queen Elizabeth wore — I got it out
from the glass case to try it on."

"Did it fit?" asked Kathleen, with interest.

" Not it — much too small," said Mabel. " I
don't believe it ever fitted any one."

" I do want my tea ! " said Jimmy.

" I do really think perhaps we ought to go,"
said Gerald. " You see, it isn't as if we could
do anything for you."

" You'll have to tell your aunt," said Kath-
leen kindly.

"No, do, no!" moaned Mabel invisibly;
" take me with you. I'll leave her a note to
say I've run away to sea."

"Girls don't run away to sea."

" They might," said the stone floor between
the pillars, "as stowaways, if nobody wanted
a cabin boy — cabin girl, I mean."

" I'm sure you oughtn't," said Kathleen
firmly.

72 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

"Well, what am I to do?"

" Really," said Gerald, " I don't know what
the girl can do. Let her come home with us
and have "

" Tea — oh, yes," said Jimmy, jumping up.

" And have a good council."

" After tea," said Jimmy.

" But her aunt '11 find she's gone."

" So she would if I stayed."

" Oh, come on," said Jimmy.

" But the aunt '11 think something's happened
to her."

"So it has."

" And she'll tell the police, and they'll look
everywhere for me."

" They'll never find you," said Gerald. " Talk
of impenetrable disguises ! "

" I'm sure," said Mabel, " aunt would much
rather never see me again than see me like
this. She'd never get over it ; it might kill
her — she has spasms as it is. I'll write to
her, and we'll put it in the big letter-box at
the gate as we go out. Has any one got a
bit of pencil and a scrap of paper ? "

Gerald had a note-book, with leaves of the
shiny kind which you have to write on, not
with a blacklead pencil, but with an ivory
thing with a point of real lead. And it won't
write on any other paper except the kind
that is in the book, and this is often very
annoying when you are in a hurry. Then
was seen the strange spectacle of a little
ivory stick, with a leaden point, standing up at

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 73

an odd, impossible-looking slant, and moving
along all by itself as ordinary pencils do when
yon are writing with them.

"May we look over?" asked Kathleen.

There was no answer. The pencil went on
writing.

" Mayn't we look over ? " Kathleen said
again.

" Of course yon may ! " said the voice near
the paper. " I nodded, didn't I ? Oh, I forgot,
my nodding's invisible too."

The pencil was forming round, clear letters
on the page torn out of the note-book. This
is what it wrote : —

" Dear Aunt, —

" I am afraid you will not see me again for
some time. A lady in a motor-car has adopted
me, and we are going straight to the coast and
then in a ship. It is useless to try to follow
me. Farewell, and may you be happy. I
hope you enjoyed the fair.

" Mabel."

" But that's all lies," said Jimmy bluntly.

"No, it isn't; it's fancy," said Mabel. "If
I said I've become invisible, she'd think that
was a lie, anyhow."

" Oh, come along," said Jimmy ; " you can
quarrel just as well walking."

Gerald folded up the note as a lady in
India had taught him to do years before, and
Mabel led them by another and very much

74 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

nearer way out of the park. And the walk
home was a great deal shorter, too, than the
walk out had heen.

The sky had clouded over while they were
in the Temple of Flora, and the first spots of
rain fell as they got back to the house, very
late indeed for tea.

Mademoiselle was looking out of the win-
dow, and came herself to open the door.

" But it is that you are in lateness, in
lateness!" she cried. "You have had a mis-
fortune — no? All goes well?"

" We are very sorry indeed," said Gerald.
" It took us longer to get home than we ex-
pected. I do hope you haven't been anxious.
I have been thinking about you most of the
way home."

" Go, then," said the French lady, smiling ;
"you shall have them in the same time — the
tea and the supper."

Which they did.

" How could you say you were thinking
about her all the time?" said a voice just by
Gerald's ear, when Mademoiselle had left them
alone with the bread and butter and milk and
baked apples. "It was just as much a lie as
me being adopted by a motor lady."

" No, it wasn't," said Gerald, through bread
and butter. " I was thinking about whether
she'd be in a wax or not. So there ! "

There were only three plates, but Jimmy
let Mabel have his, and shared with Kath-
leen. It was rather horrid to see the bread

76 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

and butter waving about in the air, and bite
after bite disappearing* from it apparently by
no human agency ; and the spoon rising with
apple in it and returning to the plate empty.
Even the tip of the spoon disappeared as long-
as it was in Mabel's unseen mouth ; so that
at times it looked as though its bowl had
been broken off.

Every one was very hungry, and more
bread and butter had to be fetched. Cook
grumbled when the plate was filled for the
third time.

" I tell you what," said Jimmy ; " I did want
my tea."

" I tell you what," said Gerald ; " it'll be jolly
difficult to give Mabel any breakfast. Made-
moiselle will be here then. She'd have a fit
if she saw bits of forks with bacon on them
vanishing, and then the forks coming back
out of vanishment, and the bacon lost for
ever."

" We shall have to buy things to eat and
feed our poor captive in secret," said Kath-
leen.

" Our money won't last long," said Jimmy,
in gloom. "Have you got any money?"

He turned to where a mug of milk was
suspended in the air without visible means of
support.

" I've not got much money," was the reply
from near the milk, " but I've got heaps of
ideas."

" We must talk about everything in the

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 77

morning," said Kathleen. " We must just say

good-night to Mademoiselle, and then you
shall sleep in my bed, Mabel. I'll lend you
one of my nightgowns."

" I'll get my own to-morrow," said Mabel
cheerfully.

"You'll go back to get things?"

" Why not ? Nobody can see me. I think
I begin to see all sorts of amusing things
coming along. It's not half bad being in-
visible."

It was extremely odd, Kathleen thought, to
see the Princess's clothes coming out of no-
thing. First the gauzy veil appeared hanging
in the air. Then the sparkling coronet sud-
denly showed on the top of the chest of
drawers. Then a sleeve of the pinky gown
showed, then another, and then the whole
gown lay on the floor in a glistening ring as
the unseen legs of Mabel stepped out of it.
For each article of clothing became visible as
Mabel took it off. The nightgown, lifted from
the bed, disappeared a bit at a time.

" Get into bed," said Kathleen, rather ner-
vously.

The bed creaked and a hollow appeared in
the pillow. Kathleen put out the gas and
got into bed ; all this magic had been rather
upsetting, and she was just the least bit
frightened, but in the dark she found it was
not so bad. Mabel's arms went round her
neck the moment she got into bed, and the
two little girls kissed in the kind darkness,

78 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

where the visible and the invisible could meet
on equal terms.

" Good-night,'' said Mabel. " You're a dar-
ling, Cathy ; you've been most awfully good
to me, and I sha'n't forget it. I didn't like to
say so before the boys, because I know boys
think you're a muff if you're grateful. But I
am. Good-night."

Kathleen lay awake for some time. She was
just getting sleepy when she remembered that
the maid who would call them in the morning
would see those wonderful Princess clothes.

" I'll have to get up and hide them," she said.
" What a bother ! "

And as she lay thinking what a bother it was
she happened to fall asleep, and when she woke
again it was bright morning, and Eliza was
standing in front of the chair where Mabel's
clothes lay, gazing at the pink Princess-frock
that lay on the top of her heap and saying,
" Law ! "

"Oh, don't touch, please /" Kathleen leaped
out of bed as Eliza was reaching out her hand.

" Where on earth did you get hold of that ? "

" We're going to use it for acting," said
Kathleen, on the desperate inspiration of the
moment. " It's lent me for that."

" You might show me, miss," suggested Eliza.

" Oh, please not ! " said Kathleen, standing in
front of the chair in her nightgown. "You
shall see us act when we are dressed up. There !
And you won't tell any one, will you ? "

" Not if you're a good little girl," said Eliza.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 79

"But you be sure to let me see when you do
dress up. But where "

Here a bell rang and Eliza had to go, for it
was the postman, and she particularly wanted to
see him.

" And now," said Kathleen, pulling on her
first stocking, " we shall have to do the acting.
Everything seems very difficult."

" Acting isn't," said Mabel ; and an unsupported
stocking waved in the air and quickly vanished.
" I shall love it."

"You forget," said Kathleen gently, "invisible
actresses can't take part in plays unless they're
magic ones."

" Oh," cried a voice from under a petticoat that
hung in the air, " I've got such an idea ! "

"Tell it us after breakfast," said Kathleen, as
the water in the basin began to splash about and
to drip from nowhere back into itself. " And
oh! I do wish you hadn't written such whoppers
to your aunt. I'm sure we oughtn't to tell lies
for anything."

" What's the use of telling the truth if
nobody believes you ? " came from among the
splashes.

" I don't know," said Kathleen, " but I'm sure
we ought to tell the truth."

"You can, if you like," said a voice from the
folds of a towel that waved lonely in front of
the wash-hand stand.

"All right. We will, then, first thing after
brek — your brek, I mean. You'll have to wait
up here till we can collar something and bring

80 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

it up to you. Mind you dodge Eliza when she
comes to make the bed."

The invisible Mabel found this a fairly amusing
game ; she further enlivened it by twitching out
the corners of tucked-up sheets and blankets
when Eliza wasn't looking.

" Drat the clothes ! " said Eliza ; " anyone ud
think the things was bewitched."

She looked about for the wonderful Princess
clothes she had glimpsed earlier in the morning.
But Kathleen had hidden them in a perfectly
safe place — under the mattress, which she knew
Eliza never turned.

Eliza hastily brushed up from the floor those
bits of fluff which come from goodness knows
where in the best regulated houses. Mabel, very
hungry and exasperated at the long absence of
the others at their breakfast, could not forbear
to whisper suddenly in Eliza's ear : —

" Always sweep under the mats."

The maid started and turned pale. " I must
be going silly," she murmured ; "though it's just
what mother always used to say. Hope I ain't
going dotty, like Aunt Emily. Wonderful what
you can fancy, ain't it ? "

She took up the hearth-rug all the same, swept
under it, and under the fender. So thorough
was she, and so pale, that Kathleen, entering
with a chunk of bread raided by Gerald from
the pantry window, exclaimed : —

" Not done yet. I say, Eliza, you do look ill !
What's the matter?"

"I thought I'd give the room a good turn-out,"
said Eliza, still very pale.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 81

"Nothing's happened to upset you?" Kathleen
asked. She had her own private fears.

" Nothing only my fancy, miss," said Eliza.
" I always was fanciful from a child — dreaming
of the pearly gates and them little angels with
nothing on only their heads and wings — so
cheap to dress, I always think, compared with
children."

When she was got rid of, Mabel ate the bread
and drank water from the tooth-mug.

" I'm afraid it tastes of cherry tooth-paste
rather," said Kathleen apologetically.

" It doesn't matter," a voice replied from the
tilted mug ; " it's more interesting than water.
I should think red wine in ballads was rather
like this."

" We've got leave for the day again," said
Kathleen, when the last bit of bread had
vanished, " and Gerald feels like I do about lies.
So we're going to tell your aunt where 3011 really
are.

" She won't believe you."

" That doesn't matter, if we speak the truth,"
said Kathleen primly.

" I expect you'll be sorry for it," said Mabel ;
" but come on — and, I say, do be careful not to
shut me in the door as you go out. You nearly
did just now."

In the blazing sunlight that flooded the High
Street four shadows to three children seemed
dangerously noticeable. A butcher's boy looked
far too earnestly at the extra shadow, and his
big, liver-coloured lurcher snuffed at the legs of

6

82 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

that shadow's mistress and whined uncomfort-
ably.

" Get behind me," said Kathleen ; " then our
two shadows will look like one."

But Mabel's shadow, very visible, fell on
Kathleen's back, and the ostler of the Davenant
Arms looked up to see what big bird had cast
that big shadow.

A woman driving a cart with chickens and
ducks in it called out : —

" Halloa, missy, ain't you blacked yer
back neither ! What you been leaning up
against ? "

Every one was glad when they got out of the
town.

Speaking the truth to Mabel's aunt did not
turn out at all as any one — even Mabel — ex-
pected. The aunt was discovered reading a pink
novelette at the window of the housekeeper's
room, which, framed in clematis and green
creepers, looked out on a nice little courtyard
to which Mabel led the party.

" Excuse me," said Gerald, " but I believe
you've lost your niece?"

" Not lost, my boy," said the aunt, who was
spare and tall, with a drab fringe and a very
genteel voice.

" We could tell you something about her,"
said Gerald.

"Now," replied the aunt, in a warning voice,
" no complaints, please. My niece has gone, and
I am sure no one thinks less than I do of bel-
li ttle pranks. If she's played any tricks on you

" HALLOA, MISSY, AIN'T YOU BLACKED YER BACK, NEITHER !

84 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

it's only her light-hearted way. Go away,
children, I'm busy."

" Did you get her note ? " asked Kathleen.

The aunt showed rather more interest than
before, but she still kept her finger in the
novelette.

" Oh," she said, " so you witnessed her depar-
ture ? Did she seem glad to go ? "

" Quite," said Gerald truthfully.

" Then I can only be glad that she is provided
for," said the aunt. " I dare say you were sur-
prised. These romantic adventures do occur in
our family. Lord Yalding selected me out of
eleven applicants for the post of housekeeper
here. I've not the slightest doubt the child was
changed at birth and her rich relatives have
claimed her."

" But aren't you going to do anything — tell
the police, or "

" Shish ! " said Mabel.

"I won't shish," said Jimmy. " Your Mabel's
invisible — that's all it is. She's just beside me
now."

" I detest untruthfulness," said the aunt
severely, " in all its forms. Will you kindly
take that little boy away ? I am quite satisfied
about Mabel."

"Well" said Gerald, "you are an aunt and no
mistake ! But what will Mabel's father and
mother say ? "

" Mabel's father and mother are dead," said
the aunt calmly, and a little sob sounded close
to Gerald's ear.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 85

" All right," he said, " we'll be off. But don't
you go saying we didn't tell you the truth,
that's all."

" You have told me nothing," said the aunt,
"none of you, except that little boy, who has
told me a silly falsehood."

"We meant well," said Gerald gently. "You
don't mind our having come through the
grounds, do you ? We're very careful not to
touch anything."

"No visitors are allowed," said the aunt,
glancing down at her novel rather impatiently.

" Ah ! but you wouldn't count us visitors,"
said Gerald in his best manner. " We're
friends of Mabel's. Our father's Colonel of
the — th."

" Indeed ! " said the aunt.

"And our aunt's Lady Sandling, so you can
be sure we wouldn't hurt anything on the
estate."

" I'm sure you wouldn't hurt a fly," said the
aunt absently. " Goodbye. Be good children."

And on this they got away quickly.

" Why," said Gerald, when they were outside
the little court, "your aunt's as mad as a hatter.
Fancy not caring what becomes of you, and
fancy believing that rot about the motor lady ! "

" I knew she'd believe it when I wrote it," said
Mabel modestly. " She's not mad, only she's
always reading novelettes. / read the books in
the big library. Oh, it's such a jolly room —
such a queer smell, like boots, and old leather
books sort of powdery at the edges. I'll take

86 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

you there some day. Now your consciences are
all right about my aunt, I'll tell you my great
idea. Let's get down to the Temple of Flora.
I'm glad you got aunt's permission for the
grounds. It would be so awkward for you
to have to be always dodging behind bushes
when one of the gardeners came along."

" Yes," said Gerald modestly, " I thought of
that."

The day was as bright as yesterday had been,
and from the white marble temple the Italian-
looking landscape looked more than ever like
a steel engraving coloured by hand, or an oleo-
graphic imitation of one of Turner's pictures.

When the three children were comfortably
settled on the steps that led up to the white
statue, the voice of the fourth child said sadly:
" I'm not ungrateful, but I'm rather hungry.
And you can't be always taking things for me
through your larder window. If you like, I'll
go back and live in the castle. It's supposed
to be haunted. I suppose I could haunt it as
well as any one else. I am a sort of ghost
now, you know. I will if you like."

" Oh no," said Kathleen kindly ; " you must
stay with us." *

" But about food. I'm not ungrateful, really
I'm not, but breakfast is breakfast, and bread's
only bread."

" If you could get the ring off, you could go
back."

" Yes," said Mabel's voice, " but you see, I
can't. I tried again last night in bed, and

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 87

again this morning. And it's like stealing,
taking things out of your larder — even if it's
only bread."

" Yes, it is," said Gerald, who had carried out
this bold enterprise.

" Well, now, what we must do is to earn
some money."

Jimmy remarked that this was all very well.
But Gerald and Kathleen listened attentively.

" What I mean to say," the voice went on,
" I'm really sure is all for the best, me being
invisible. We shall have adventures — you see
if we don't."

" ' Adventures,' said the bold buccaneer, ' are
not always profitable.' ' It was Gerald who
murmured this.

"This one will be, anyhow, you see. Only
you mustn't all go. Look here, if Jerry could
make himself look common "

" That ought to be easy," said Jimmy. And
Kathleen told him not to be so jolly disagreeable.

"I'm not," said Jimmy, "only "

" Only he has an inside feeling that this
Mabel of yours is going to get us into trouble,"
put in Gerald. " Like La Belle Dame Sans
Merci, and he does not want to be found in
future ages alone and palely loitering in the
middle of sedge and things."

"I won't get you into trouble, indeed I won't,"
said the voice. " Why, we're a band of brothers
for life, after the way you stood by me yester-
day. What I mean is — Gerald can go to the
fair and do conjuring."

88 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" He doesn't know any," said Kathleen.

" / should do it really," said Mabel, " but Jerry
could look like doing it. Move things without
touching them and all that. But it wouldn't do
for all three of you to go. The more there are
of children the younger they look, I think, and
the more people wonder what they're doing all
alone by themselves."

" The accomplished conjurer deemed these
the words of wisdom," said Gerald ; and
answered the dismal " Well, but what about
us ? " of his brother and sister by suggesting
that they should mingle unsuspected with the
crowd. " But don't let on that you know me,"
he said ; " and try to look as if you belonged to
some of the grown-ups at the fair. If you don't,
as likely as not you'll have the kind policemen
taking the little lost children by the hand and
leading them home to their stricken relations. —
French governess, I mean."

"Let's go now" said the voice that they never
could get quite used to hearing, coming out of
different parts of the air as Mabel moved from
one place to another. So they went.

The fair was held on a waste bit of land, about
half a mile from the castle gates. When they
got near enough to hear the steam-organ of the
merry-go-round, Gerald suggested that as he
had ninepence he should go ahead and get some-
thing to eat, the amount spent to be paid back
out of any money they might make by con-
juring. The others waited in the shadows of a
deep-banked lane, and he came back, quite soon,

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 89

though long after they had hegun to say what
a long time he had been gone. He brought
some Barcelona nuts, red-streaked apples, small
sweet yellow pears, pale pasty gingerbread, a
whole quarter of a pound of peppermint bulls-
eyes, and two bottles of gingerbeer.

" It's what they call an investment," he said,
when Kathleen said something about extra-
vagance. "We shall all need special nourishing
to keep our strength up, especially the bold
conjurer."

They ate and drank. It was a very beautiful
meal, and the far-off music of the steam-organ
added the last touch of festivity to the scene.
The boys were never tired of seeing Mabel eat,
or rather of seeing the strange, magic-looking
vanishment of food which was all that showed
of Mabel's eating. They were entranced by the
spectacle, and pressed on her more than her just
share of the feast, just for the pleasure of seeing
it disappear.

" My aunt ! " said Gerald, again and again ;
" that ought to knock 'em ! "

It did.

Jimmy and Kathleen had the start of the
others, and when they got to the fair they
mingled with the crowd, and were as unsuspected
as possible.

They stood near a large lady who was watch-
ing the cocoanut shies, and presently saw a
strange ligure with its hands in its pockets
strolling across the trampled yellowy grass
among the bits of drifting paper and the sticks

90 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

and straws that always litter the ground of an
English fair. It was Gerald, but at first they
hardly knew him. He had taken off his tie, and
round his head, arranged like a turban, was the
crimson school-scarf that had supported his
white flannels. The tie, one supposed, had
taken on the duties of the handkerchief.
And his face and hands were a bright black,
like very nicely polished stoves !

Every one turned to look at him.

" He's just like a nigger ! " whispered Jimmy.
" I don't suppose it'll ever come off, do you ? "

They followed him at a distance, and when he
went close to the door of a small tent, against
whose door - post a long - faced melancholy
woman was lounging, they stopped and tried
to look as though they belonged to a farmer
who strove to send up a number by banging
with a big mallet on a wooden block.

Gerald went up to the woman.

" Taken much ? " he asked, and was told, but
not harshly, to go away with his impudence.

" I'm in business myself," said Gerald, " I'm a
conjurer, from India."

" Not you ! " said the woman ; " you ain't no
nigger. Why, the backs of yer ears is all
white."

"Are they?" said Gerald. "How clever of
you to see that ! " He rubbed them with his
hands. "That better?"

"That's all right. What's your little game?"

" Conjuring, really and truly," said Gerald.
" There's smaller boys than me put on to it

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 91

in India. Look here, I owe you one for telling
me about my ears. If you like to run the show
for me I'll go shares. Let me have your tent to
perform in, and you do the patter at the door."

" Lor' love you ! I can't do no patter. And
you're getting at me. Let's see you do a bit of
conjuring, since you're so clever an' all."

" Right you are," said Gerald firmly. " You
see this apple? Well, I'll make it move slowly
through the air, and then when I say ' Go !' it'll
vanish."

" Yes — into your mouth ! Get away with your
nonsense."

"You're too clever to be so unbelieving," said
Gerald. " Look here ! "

He held out one of the little apples, and the
woman saw it move slowly and unsupported
along the air.

"Now — go!" cried Gerald, to the apple, and
it w T ent. " How's that ? " he asked, in tones of
triumph.

The woman was glowing with excitement, and
her eyes shone. " The best I ever see ! " she
whispered. " I'm on, mate, if you know any
more tricks like that."

" Heaps," said Gerald confidently ; " hold out
your hand." The woman held it out ; and from
nowhere, as it seemed, the apple appeared and
was laid on her hand. The apple was rather
damp.

She looked at it a moment, and then whis-
pered : " Come on ! there's to be no one in it
but just us two. But not in the tent. You take

"you're getting at me. let's see you do a bit of conjuring,
since you're so clever an' all."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 93

a pitch here, 'longside the tent. It's worth twice
the money in the open air."

" But people won't pay if they can see it all
for nothing."

"Not for the first turn, but they will after —
yon see. And you'll have to do the patter."

"Will you lend me your shawl?" Gerald
asked. She unpinned it — it was a red and black
plaid — and he spread it on the ground as he had
seen Indian conjurers do, and seated himself
cross-legged behind it.

" I mustn't have any one behind me, that's
all," he said ; and the woman hastily screened
off a little enclosure for him by hanging old
sacks to two of the guy-ropes of the tent.
" Now I'm ready," he said. The woman got a
drum from the inside of the tent and beat it.
Quite soon a little crowd had collected.

" Ladies and gentlemen," said Gerald, " I come
from India, and I can do a conjuring entertain-
ment the like of which you've never seen. When
I see two shillings on the shawl I'll begin."

" I dare say you will ! " said a bystander ; and
there were several short, disagreeable laughs.

" Of course," said Gerald, " if you can't afford
two shillings between you " — there were about
thirty people in the crowd by now — " I say no
more."

Two or three pennies fell on the shawl, then
a few more, then the fall of copper ceased.

" Ninepence," said Gerald. " Well, I've got a
generous nature. You'll get such a nine-
pennyworth as you've never had before. I

94 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

don't wish to deceive you — I have an accom-
plice, but my accomplice is invisible."

The crowd snorted.

" By the aid of that accomplice," Gerald went
on, " I will read any letter that any of you
may have in your pocket. If one of you will
just step over the rope and stand beside me,
my invisible accomplice will read that letter
over his shoulder."

A man stepped forward, a ruddy-faced, horsy-
looking person. He pulled a letter from his
pocket and stood plain in the sight of all, in a
place where every one saw that no one could
see over his shoulder.

" Now ! " said Gerald. There was a moment's
pause. Then from quite the other side of the
enclosure came a faint, far-away, sing-song
voice. It said : —

"'Sir, — Yours of the fifteenth duly to hand.
With regard to the mortgage on your land,
we regret our inability

" Stow it ! " cried the man, turning threaten-
ingly on Gerald.

He stepped out of the enclosure explaining
that there was nothing of that sort in his
letter ; but nobody believed him, and a buzz of
interested chatter began in the crowd, ceasing
abruptly when Gerald began to speak.

" Now," said he, laying the nine pennies down
on the shawl, " you keep your eyes on those
pennies, and one by one you'll see them dis-
appear."

And of course they did. Then one by one

L -^>

"STOW IT !" CRIED THE MAN, TURNING THREATENINGLY ON GERALD.

96 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

they were laid down again by the invisible
hand of Mabel. The crowd clapped loudly.
" Brayvo ! " " That's something like ! " " Show
us another ! " cried the people in the front rank.
And those behind pushed forward.

" Now," said Gerald, " you've seen what I can
do, but I don't do any more till I see five
shillings on this carpet."

And in two minutes seven-and-threepence lay
there and Gerald did a little more conjuring.

When the people in front didn't want to
give any more money, Gerald asked them to
stand back and let the. others have a look in. I
wish I had time to tell you of all the tricks he
did — the grass round his enclosure was abso-
lutely trampled off by the feet of the people
who thronged to look at him. There is really
hardly any limit to the wonders you can do if
you have an invisible accomplice. All sorts of
things were made to move about, apparently
by themselves, and even to vanish — into the
folds of Mabel's clothing. The woman stood
by, looking more and more pleasant as she
saw the money come tumbling in, and beating
her shabby drum every time Gerald stopped
conjuring.

The news of the conjurer had spread all over
the fair. The crowd was frantic with admira-
tion. The man who ran the cocoanut shies
begged Gerald to throw in his lot with him ;
the owner of the rifle gallery offered him free
board and lodging and go shares ; and a brisk,
broad lady, in stiff black silk and a violet

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 97

bonnet, tried to engage him for the forth-
coming Bazaar for Reformed Bandsmen.

And all this time the others mingled with the
crowd — quite unobserved, for who could have
eyes for any one but Gerald? It was getting
quite late, long past tea-time, and Gerald, who
was getting very tired indeed, and was quite
satisfied with his share of the money, was
racking his brains for a way to get out of it.

"How are we to hook it?" he murmured, as
Mabel made his cap disappear from his head
by the simple process of taking it off and
putting it in her pocket. " They'll never let us
get away. I didn't think of that before."

" Let me think ! " whispered Mabel ; and next
moment she said, close to his ear : " Divide
the money, and give her something for the
shawl. Put the money on it and say . . ."
She told him what to say.

Gerald's pitch was in the shade of the tent ;
otherwise, of course, every one would have seen
the shadow of the invisible Mabel as she moved
about making things vanish.

Gerald told the woman to divide the money,
which she did honestly enough.

" Now," he said, while the impatient crowd
pressed closer and closer, " I'll give you five bob
for your shawl."

" Seven-and-six," said the woman mechanically.

" Righto ! " said Gerald, putting his heavy share
of the money in his trouser pocket.

"This shawl will iioav disappear," he said,
picking it up. He handed it to Mabel, who put

7

98 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

it on ; and, of course, it disappeared. A roar of
applause went up from the audience.

" Now," he said, " I come to the last trick of
all. I shall take three steps backward and
vanish." He took three steps backward, Mabel
wrapped the invisible shawl round him, and — he
did not vanish. The shawl, being invisible, did
not conceal him in the least.

" Yah ! " cried a boy's voice in the crowd.
" Look at 'im ! 'E knows 'e can't do it."

" I wish I could put you in my pocket," said
Mabel. The crowd was crowding closer. At
any moment they might touch Mabel, and
then anything might happen — simply anything.
Gerald took hold of his hair with both hands,
as his way was when he was anxious or dis-
couraged. Mabel, in invisibility, wrung her
hands, as people are said to do in books ; that
is, she clasped them and squeezed very tight.

" Oh ! " she whispered suddenly, " it's loose.
I can get it off."

« Not—"

"Yes — the ring."

" Come on, young master. Give us summat
for our money," a farm labourer shouted.

" I will," said Gerald. " This time I really will
vanish. Slip round into the tent," he whispered
to Mabel. " Push the ring under the canvas.
Then slip out at the back and join the others.
When I see you with them I'll disappear. Go
slow, and I'll catch you up."

"It's me," said a pale and obvious Mabel in

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 99

the ear of Kathleen. " He's got the ring ; come
on, before the crowd begins to scatter."

As they went out of the gate they heard a
roar of surprise and annoyance rise from the
crowd, and knew that this time Gerald really
had disappeared.

They had gone a mile before they heard foot-
steps on the road, and looked back. No one was
to be seen.

Next moment Gerald's voice spoke out of
clear, empty-looking space.

" Halloa ! " it said gloomily.

" How horrid ! " cried Mabel ; " you did make
me jump ! Take the ring off. It makes me
feel quite creepy, you being nothing but a
voice."

" So did you us," said Jimmy.

" Don't take it off yet," said Kathleen, who
was really rather thoughtful for her age, " be-
cause you're still black, I suppose, and you
might be recognised, and eloped with by gipsies,
so that you should go on doing conjuring for
ever and ever."

" I should take it off," said Jimmy ; " it's
no use -going about invisible, and people
seeing us with Mabel and saying we've eloped
with her."

" Yes," said Mabel impatiently, ' ; that would
be simply silly. And, besides, I want my
ring."

" It's not yours any more than ours, anyhow,"
said Jimmy.

" Yes, it is," said Mabel.

100 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" Oh, stow it ! " said the weary voice of Gerald
beside her. "What's the use of jawing?"

"I want the ring," said Mabel, rather mulishly.

"Want" — the words came out of the still
ev r ening air — " want must be your master. You
can't have the ring. / cant get it off! "

CHAPTER IV

The difficulty was not only that Gerald had got
the ring on and couldn't get it off, and was there-
fore invisible, but that Mabel, who had been
invisible and therefore possible to be smuggled
into the house, was now plain to be seen and
impossible for smuggling purposes.

The children would have not only to account
for the apparent absence of one of themselves,
but for the obvious presence of a perfect
stranger.

" I can't go back to aunt. I can't and I won't,"
said Mabel firmly, "not if I was visible twenty
times over."

" She'd smell a rat if you did," Gerald owned —
"about the motor-car, I mean, and the adopting
lady. And what we're to say to Mademoiselle
about you !" He tugged at the ring.

••Suppose you told the truth," said Mabel
meaningly.

"She wouldn't believe it," said Cathy; "or, if
she did, she'd go stark, staring, raving mad."

"No," said Gerald's voice, " we daren't tell her.
But she's really rather decent. Let's ask her to
let you stay the night because it's too late for

you to get home."

101

102 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

"That's all right," said Jimmy, "but what
about you ? "

" I shall go to bed," said Gerald, "with a bad
headache. Oh, that's not a lie! I've got one
right enough. It's the sun, I think. I know
blacklead attracts the concentration of the sun."

" More likely the pears and the gingerbread,"
said Jimmy unkindly. " Well, let's get along.
I wish it was me was invisible. I'd do something
different from going to bed with a silly headache,
I know that."

" What would you do ? " asked the voice of
Gerald just behind him.

" Do keep in one place, you silly cuckoo ! " said
Jimmy. " You make me feel all jumpy." He
had indeed jumped rather violently. " Here,
walk between Cathy and me."

" What would you do ? " repeated Gerald, from
that apparently unoccupied position.

" I'd be a burglar," said Jimmy.

Cathy and Mabel in one breath reminded him
how wrong burgling was, and Jimmy replied :

" Well, then — a detective."

" There's got to be something to detect before
you can begin detectiving," said Mabel.

" Detectives don't always detect things," said
Jimmy, very truly. " If I couldn't be any other
kind I'd be a baffled detective. You could be one
all right, and have no end of larks just the same.
Why don't you do it ? "

"It's exactly what I am going to do," said
Gerald. " We'll go round by the police-station
and see what they've got in the way of crimes.'

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 103

They did, and read the notices on the board
outside. Two dogs had been lost, a purse, and
a portfolio of papers "of no value to any but
the owner." Also Houghton Grange had been
broken into and a quantity of silver plate stolen.
" Twenty pounds reward offered for any infor-
mation that may lead to the recovery of the
missing property."

" That burglary's my lay," said Gerald ; " I'll
detect that. Here comes Johnson," he added ;
" he's going off duty. Ask him about it. The
fell detective, being invisible, was unable to pump
the constable, but the young brother of our hero
made the inquiries in quite a creditable manner.
Be creditable, Jimmy."

Jimmy hailed the constable.

" Halloa, Johnson ! " he said.

And Johnson replied : " Halloa, young shaver ! "

" Shaver yourself ! " said Jimmy, but without
malice.

" What are you doing this time of night ? "
the constable asked jocosely. " All the dicky
birds is gone to their little nesteses."

" We've been to the fair," said Kathleen.
" There was a conjurer there. I wish you could
have seen him."

" Heard about him," said Johnson ; " all fake,
you know. The quickness of the 'and deceives
the hi."

Such is fame. Gerald, standing in the shadow,
jingled the loose money in his pocket to console
himself.

"What's that?" the policeman asked quickly.

"what's that?" the policeman asked quickly,

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 105

" Our money jingling," said Jimmy, with
perfect truth.

" It's well to be some people," Johnson re-
marked ; " wish I'd got my pockets full to jingle
with."

"Well, why haven't you?" asked Mabel.
"Why don't you get that twenty pounds
reward ? "

" I'll tell you why I don't. Because in this
'ere realm of liberty, and Britannia ruling the
waves, you aint allowed to arrest a chap on
suspicion, even if you know pumckly well who
done the job."

" What a shame ! " said Jimmy warmly.
"And who do you think did it?"

" I don't think — I know." Johnson's voice was
X^onderous as his boots. " It's a man what's
known to the police on account of a heap o'
crimes he's done, but we never can't bring it
'ome to 'im, nor yet get sufficient evidence to
convict."

"Well," said Jimmy, "when I've left school
I'll come to you and be apprenticed, and be a
detective. Just now I think we'd better get
home and detect our supper. Good-night ! "

They watched the policeman's broad form
disappear through the swing door of the police-
station ; and as it settled itself into quiet again
the voice of Gerald was heard complaining
bitterly.

" You've no more brains than a halfpenny
bun," he said ; " no details about how and when
the silver was taken."

106 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" But he told us he knew," Jimmy urged.

" Yes, that's all you've got out of him. A silly
policeman's silly idea. Go home and detect your
precious supper ! It's all you're fit for."

" What'll you do about supper ? " Mabel
asked.

" Buns ! " said Gerald, " halfpenny buns. They'll
make me think of my dear little brother and
sister. Perhaps you've got enough sense to buy
buns ? I can't go into a shop in this state."

" Don't you be so disagreeable," said Mabel
with spirit. " We did our best. If I were Cathy
you should whistle for your nasty buns."

" If you were Cathy the gallant young detec-
tive would have left home long ago. Better
the cabin of a tramp steamer than the best
family mansion that's got a brawling sister in
it," said Gerald. " You're a bit of an outsider at
present, my gentle maiden. Jimmy and Cathy
know well enough when their bold leader is
chaffing and when he isn't."

" Not when we can't see your face we don't,"
said Cathy, in tones of relief. " I really thought
you were in a flaring wax, and so did Jimmy,
didn't you ? "

" Oh, rot ! " said Gerald. " Come on ! This
way to the bun shop."

They went. And it was while Cathy and
Jimmy were in the shop and the others were
gazing through the glass at the jam tarts and
Swiss rolls and Victoria sandwiches and Bath
buns under the spread yellow muslin in the
window, that Gerald discoursed in Mabel's ear

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 107

of the plans and hopes of one entering on a
detective career.

" I shall keep my eyes open to-night, I can tell
yon," he began. " I shall keep my eyes skinned,
and no jolly error. The invisible detective may
not only find out about the purse and the silver,
but detect some crime that isn't even done yet.
And I shall hang about until I see some sus-
picious-looking characters leave the town, and
follow them furtively and catch them red-
handed, with their hands full of priceless jewels,
and hand them over."

" Oh ! " cried Mabel, so sharply and suddenly
that Gerald was roused from his dream to
express sympathy.

" Pain ? " he said quite kindly. " It's the
apples — they were rather hard."

*' Oh, it's not that," said Mabel very earnestly.
" Oh, how awful ! I never thought of that
before."

" Never thought of ivhat i " Gerald asked
impatiently.

"The window."

" What window ? "

" The panelled-room window. At home, you
know — at the castle. That settles it — I must
go home. We left it open and the shutters as
well, and all the jewels and things there.
Auntie'll never go in ; she never does. That
settles it ; I must go home — now — this minute."

Here the others issued from the shop, bun-
bearing, and the situation was hastily explained
to them.

"I MUST GO HOME — NOW — THIS MINUTE.'

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 109

"So you see I must go," Mabel ended.

And Kathleen agreed that she must.

But Jimmy said he didn't see what good it
would do. " Because the key's inside the door,
anyhow."

" She will be cross," said Mabel sadly. " She'll
have to get the gardeners to get a ladder
and "

" Hooray ! " said Gerald. " Here's me ! Nobler
and more secret than gardeners or ladders was
the invisible Jerry. I'll climb in at the window
— it's all ivy, I know I could — and shut the
window and the shutters all sereno, put the key
back on the nail, and slip out imperceived the
back way, threading my way through the maze
of unconscious retainers. There'll be plenty of
time. I don't suppose burglars begin their fell
work until the night is far advanced."

" Won't you be afraid ? " Mabel asked. " Will
it be safe — suppose you were caught ? "

" As houses. I can't be," Gerald answered, and
wondered that the question came from Mabel
and not from Kathleen, who was usually inclined
to fuss a little aimoyingly about the danger and
folly of adventures.

But all Kathleen said was, " Well, goodbye ;
we'll come and see you to-morrow, Mabel. The
floral temple at half-past ten. I hope you
won't get into an awful row about the motor-
car lady."

" Let's detect our supper now," said Jimmy.

"All right," said Gerald a little bitterly.
It is hard to enter on an adventure like this

110 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

and to find the sympathetic interest of years
suddenly cut off at the meter, as it were.
Gerald felt that he ought, at a time like this,
to have been the centre of interest. And he
wasn't. They could actually talk about supper.
Well, let them. He didn't care ! He spoke
with sharp sternness : " Leave the pantry
window undone for me to get in by when
I've done my detecting. Come on, Mabel."
He caught her hand. " Bags I the buns,
though," he added, by a happy afterthought,
and snatching the bag, pressed it on Mabel,
and the sound of four boots echoed on the
pavement of the High Street as the outlines
of the running Mabel grew small with distance.

Mademoiselle was in the drawing-room. She
was sitting by the window in the waning light
reading letters.

"Ah, vous void /" she said unintelligibly.
" You are again late ; and my little Gerald,
where is he ? "

This was an awful moment. Jimmy's detec-
tive scheme had not included any answer to
this inevitable question. The silence was un-
broken till Jimmy spoke.

" He said he was going to bed because he
had a headache." And this, of course, was true.

" This poor Gerald ! " said Mademoiselle. " Is
it that I should mount him some supper ? "

" He never eats anything when he's got one
of his headaches," Kathleen said. And this also
was the truth.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 111

Jimmy and Kathleen went to bed, wholly
untroubled by anxiety about their brother, and
Mademoiselle pulled out the bundle of letters
and read them amid the ruins of the simple
supper.

" It is ripping being out late like this," said
Gerald through the soft summer dusk.

" Yes," said Mabel, a solitary-looking figure
plodding along the high-road. "I do hope
auntie won't be very furious."

" Have another bun," suggested Gerald kindly,
and a sociable munching followed.

It was the aunt herself who opened to a very
pale and trembling Mabel the door which is
appointed for the entrances and exits of the
domestic staff at Yalding Towers. She looked
over Mabel's head first, as if she expected to
see some one taller. Then a very small voice
said : —

" Aunt ! "

The aunt started back, then made a step
towards Mabel.

" You naughty, naughty girl ! " she cried
angrily ; " how could you give me such a
fright? I've a good mind to keep you in bed
for a week for this, miss. Oh, Mabel, thank
Heaven you're safe ! " And with that the
aunt's arms went round Mabel and Mabel's
round the aunt in such a hug as they had
never met in before.

" But you didn't seem to care a bit this
morning," said Mabel, when she had realised

112 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

that her aunt really had been anxious, really
was glad to have her safe home again.

" How do you know ? "

" I was there listening. Don't be angry,
auntie."

"I feel as if I never could be angry with you
again, now I've got you safe," said the aunt
surprisingly.

" But how was it ? " Mabel asked.

" My dear," said the aunt impressively, " I've
been in a sort of trance. I think I must be
going to be ill. I've always been fond of you,
but I didn't want to spoil you. But yesterday,
about half-past three, I was talking about
you to Mr. Lewson, at the fair, and quite
suddenly I felt as if you didn't matter at all.
And I felt the same when I got your letter and
when those children came. And to-day in
the middle of tea I suddenly woke up and
realised that you were gone. It was awful. I
think I must be going to be ill. Oh, Mabel,
why did you do it ? "

" It was — a joke," said Mabel feebly. And
then the two went in and the door was shut.

" That's most uncommon odd," said Gerald,
outside ; " looks like more magic to me. I don't
feel as if we'd got to the bottom of this yet,
by any manner of means. There's more about
this castle than meets the eye."

There certainly was. For this castle happened
to be — but it would not be fair to Gerald to tell
you more about it than he knew on that night
when he went alone and invisible through the

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 113

shadowy great grounds of it to look for the
open window of the panelled room. He knew
that night no more than I have told you ; but
as he went along the dewy lawns and through
the groups of shrubs and trees, where pools
lay like giant looking-glasses reflecting the
quiet stars, and the white limbs of statues
gleamed against a background of shadow, he
began to feel— well, not excited, not surprised,
not anxious, but — different.

The incident of the invisible Princess had sur-
prised, the incident of the conjuring had excited,
and the sudden decision to be a detective had
brought its own anxieties ; but all these happen-
ings, though wonderful and unusual, had
seemed to be, after all, inside the circle of
possible things — wonderful as the chemical
experiments are where two liquids poured
together make fire, surprising as legerdemain,
thrilling as a juggler's display, but nothing
more. Only now a new feeling came to him as
he walked through those gardens ; by day those
gardens were like dreams, at night they were
like visions. He could not see his feet as he
walked, but he saw the movement of the dewy
grass-blades that his feet displaced. And he
had that extraordinary feeling so difficult to
describe, and yet so real and so unforgetable —
the feeling that he was in another world, that
had covered up and hidden the old world as a
carpet covers a floor. The floor was there all
right, underneath, but what he Avaiked on
was the carpet that covered it — and that

8

114 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

carpet was drenched in magic, as the turf was
drenched in dew.

The feeling was very wonderful ; perhaps you
will feel it some day. There are still some places
in the world where it can be felt, but they grow
fewer every year.

The enchantment of the garden held him.

" I'll not go in yet," he told himself ; " it's too
early. And perhaps I shall never be here at
night again. I suppose it is the night that
makes everything look so different."

Something white moved under a weeping
willow ; white hands parted the long, rustling
leaves. A white figure came out, a creature
with horns and goat's legs and the head and
arms of a boy. And Gerald was not afraid.
That was the most wonderful thing of all,
though he would never have owned it. The
white thing stretched its limbs, rolled on the
grass, righted itself, and frisked away across the
lawn. Still something white gleamed under
the willow ; three steps nearer and Gerald saw
that it was the pedestal of a statue — empty.

" They come alive," he said ; and another
white shape came out of the Temple of Flora
and disappeared in the laurels. " The statues
come alive."

There was a crunching of the little stones in
the gravel of the drive. Something enormously
long and darkly grey came crawling towards
him, slowly, heavily. The moon came out just
in time to show its shape. It was one of those
great lizards that you see at the Crystal Palace,

THE M0V1NU STONE BEAST

116 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

made in stone, of the same awful size which
they were millions of years ago when they
were masters of the world, before Man was.

" It can't see me," said Gerald. " I am not
afraid. It's come to life, too."

As it writhed past him he reached out a hand
and touched the side of its gigantic tail. It
was of stone. It had not " come alive," as he
had fancied, but was alive in its stone. It
turned, however, at the touch ; but Gerald also
had turned, and was running with all his speed
towards the house. Because at that stony
touch Fear had come into the garden and
almost caught him. It was Fear that he ran
from, and not the moving stone beast.

He stood panting under the fifth window ;
when he had climbed to the window-ledge by
the twisted ivy that clung to the wall, he looked
back over the grey slope — there was a splashing
at the fish-pool that had mirrored the stars —
the shape of the great stone beast was wallow-
ing in the shallows among the lily-pads.

Once inside the room, Gerald turned for
another look. The fish-pond lay still and dark,
reflecting the moon. Through a gap in the
drooping willow the moonlight fell on a statue
that stood calm and motionless on its pedestal.
Everything was in its place now in the garden.
Nothing moved or stirred.

" How extraordinarily rum !" said Gerald. " I
shouldn't have thought you could go to sleep
walking through a garden and dream — like
that."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 117

He shut the window, lit a match, and closed
the shutters. Another match showed him the
door. He turned the key, went out, locked the
door again, hung the key on its usual nail, and
crept to the end of the passage. Here he
waited, safe in his invisibility, till the dazzle
of the matches should have gone from his
eyes, and he be once more able to find his
way by the moonlight that fell in bright
patches on the floor through the barred, un-
shuttered windows of the hall.

" Wonder where the kitchen is," said Gerald.
He had quite forgotten that he was a detective.
He was only anxious to get home and tell the
others about that extraordinarily odd dream
that he had had in the gardens. ' ; I suppose
it doesn't matter ivhat doors I open. I'm in-
visible all right still, I suppose? Yes ; can't see
my hand before my face." He held up a hand
for the purpose. " Here goes ! "

He opened many doors, wandered into long
looms with furniture dressed in brown holland
covers that looked white in that strange light,
rooms with chandeliers hanging in big bags from
the high ceilings, rooms Avhose walls were alive
with pictures, rooms whose walls were deadened
with rows on rows of old books, state bedrooms
in whose great plumed four-posters Queen
Elizabeth had no doubt slept. (That Queen, by
the way, must have been very little at home, for
she seems to have slept in every old house in
England.) But he could not find the kitchen.
At last a door opened on stone steps that went

118 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

up — there was a narrow stone passage — steps
that went down — a door with a light under it.
It was, somehow, difficult to put out one's hand
to that door and open it.

"Nonsense!" Gerald told himself; "don't be
an ass ! Are you invisible, or aren't you ? "

Then he opened the door, and some one inside
said something in a sudden rough growl.

Gerald stood back, flattened against the wall,
as a man sprang to the doorway and flashed
a lantern into the passage.

" All right," said the man, with almost a sob
of relief. "It was only the door swung open, it's
that heavy — that's all."

" Blow the door ! " said another growling voice ;
" blessed if I didn't think it was a fair cop that
time."

They closed the door again. Gerald did not
mind. In fact, he rather preferred that it should
be so. He didn't like the look of those men.
There was an air of threat about them. In their
presence even invisibility seemed too thin a dis-
guise. And Gerald had seen as much as he
wanted to see. He had seen that he had been
right about the gang. By wonderful luck —
beginner's luck, a card-player would have told
him — he had discovered a burglary on the very
first night of his detective career. The men were
taking silver out of two great chests, wrapping
it in rags, and packing it in baize sacks. The
door of the room was of iron six inches thick.
It was, in fact, the strong-room, and these men
had picked the lock. The tools they had done it

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 119

with lay on the floor, on a neat cloth roll, such
as wood-carvers keep their chisels in.

" Hurry up ! " Gerald heard. " You needn't
take all night over it."

The silver rattled slightly. " You're a rattling
of them trays like bloomin' castanets," said the
gruffest voice. Gerald turned and went away,
very carefully and very quickly. And it is a
most curious thing that, though he couldn't find
the way to the servants' wing when he had
nothing else to think of, yet now, with his mind
full, so to speak, of silver forks and silver cups,
and the question of who might he coming after
him down those twisting passages, he went
straight as an arrow to the door that led from
the hall to the place he wanted to get to.

As he went the happenings took words in
his mind.

" The fortunate detective," he told himself,
"having succeeded beyond his wildest dreams,
himself left the spot in search of assistance."

But what assistance? There were, no doubt,
men in the house, also the aunt ; but he could
not warn them. He was too hopelessly invisible
to carry any weight with strangers. The assist-
ance of Mabel would not be of much value.
The police? Before they could be got — and
the getting of them presented difficulties — the
burglars would have cleared away with their
sacks of silver.

Gerald stopped and thought hard ; he held his
head with both hands to do it. You know the
way — the same as you sometimes do for simple

THE MEN WERE TAKING SILVER OUT OF TWO GREAT CHESTS.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 121

equations or the dates of the battles of the Civil
War.

Then with pencil, note-book, a window-ledge,
and all the cleverness he could find at the
moment, he wrote : —

" You knoic the room tchere the silver is.
Burglars are burgling it, the thick door is picked.
Send a man for police. I will follow the burglars
if they get away ere police arrive on the spot."

He hesitated a moment, and ended —

"From a Friend — this is not a sell."

This letter, tied tightly round a stone by means
of a shoe-lace, thundered through the window of
the room where Mabel and her aunt, in the
ardour of reunion, were enjoying a supper of
unusual charm — stewed plums, cream, sponge-
cakes, custard in cups, and cold bread-and-butter
pudding.

Gerald, in hungry invisibility, looked wistfully
at the supper before he threw the stone. He
waited till the shrieks had died away, saw the
stone picked up, the warning letter read.

" Nonsense ! " said the aunt, growing calmer.
" How wicked ! Of course it's a hoax."

" Oh ! do send for the police, like he says,"
wailed Mabel.

" Like who says ? " snapped the aunt.

" Whoever it is," Mabel moaned.

"Send for the police at once," said Gerald,
outside, in the manliest voice he could find.

122 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" You'll only blame yourself if you don't. I
can't do any more for you."

" I— I'll set the dogs on you ! " cried the aunt.

"Oh, auntie, dorit!" Mabel was dancing with
agitation. " It's true — I know it's true. Do — do
wake Bates ! "

" I don't believe a word of it," said the aunt.
No more did Bates when, owing to Mabel's per-
sistent worryings, he was awakened. But when
he had seen the paper, and had to choose
whether he'd go to the strong-room and see that
there really wasn't anything to believe or go for
the police on his bicycle, he choose the latter
course.

When the police arrived the strong-room door
stood ajar, and the silver, or as much of it as
three men could carry, was gone.

Gerald's note-book and pencil came into play
again later on that night. It was five in the
morning before he crept into bed, tired out and
cold as a stone.

" Master Gerald ! " — it was Eliza's voice in his
ears — "it's seven o'clock and another fine day,

and there's been another burglary My cats

alive ! " she screamed, as she drew up the blind
and turned towards the bed ; " look at his bed,
all crocked with black, and him not there ! Oh,
Jimminy !" It was a scream this time. Kathleen
came running from her room ; Jimmy sat up in
his bed and rubbed his eyes.

" Whatever is it ? " Kathleen cried.

" I dunno when I 'ad such a turn." Eliza sat

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 123

down heavily on a box as she spoke. " First
thing his bed all empty and black as the chimley
back, and him not in it, and then when I looks
again he is in it all the time. I must be going
silly. I thought as much when I heard them
haunting angel voices yesterday morning. But
I'll tell Mam'selle of you, my lad, w T ith your
tricks, you may rely on that. Blacking yourself
all over like a dirty nigger and crocking up your
clean sheets and pillow T -cases. It's going back
of beyond, this is."

" Look here," said Gerald slowly ; " I'm going
to tell you something."

Eliza simply snorted, and that was rude of
her ; but then, she had had a shock and had not
got over it.

" Can you keep a secret ? " asked Gerald, very
earnest through the grey of his partly rubbed-
off blacklead.

"Yes," said Eliza.

"Then keep it and I'll give you two bob."

" But what was you going to tell me ? "

"That. About the two bob and the secret.
And you keep your mouth shut."

" I didn't ought to take it," said Eliza, holding
out her hand eagerly. " Now you get up,
and mind you wash all the corners, Master
Gerald."

" Oh, I'm so glad you're safe," said Kathleen,
when Eliza had gone.

"You didn't seem to care much last night,"
said Gerald coldly.

" I can't think how I let you go. I didn't care

124 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

last night. But when I woke this morning and
remembered ! "

" There, that'll do — it'll come off on you," said
Gerald through the reckless hugging of his
sister.

" How did you get visible ? " Jimmy asked.

"It just happened when she called me — the
ring came off."

" Tell us all about everything," said Kathleen.

" Not yet," said Gerald mysteriously.

" Where's the ring ? " Jimmy asked after
breakfast. " I want to have a try now."

" I — I forgot it," said Gerald ; " I expect it's in
the bed somewhere."

But it wasn't. Eliza had made the bed.

" I'll swear there aint no ring there," she said.
" I should 'a' seen it if there had 'a' been."

CHAPTER V

" Search and research proving vain," said
Gerald, when every corner of the bedroom had
been turned ont and the ring had not been
found, " the noble detective hero of our tale
remarked that he would have other fish to fry
in half a jiff, and if the rest of you want to hear
about last night ..."

"Let's keep it till we get to Mabel," said
Kathleen heroically.

"The assignation was ten-thirty, wasn't it?
Why shouldn't Gerald gas as we go along ? I
don't suppose anything very much happened,
anyhow." This, of course, was Jimmy.

" That shows," remarked Gerald sweetly, " how
much you know. The melancholy Mabel will
await the tryst without success, as far as this
one is concerned. ' Fish, fish, other fish —
other fish I fry ! ' ' he warbled to the tune of
" Cherry Ripe," till Kathleen could have pinched
him.

Jimmy turned coldly away, remarking,
" When you've quite done."

But Gerald went on singing —

125

126 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

"'Where the lips of Johnson smile,
There's the land of Cherry Isle.
Other fish, other fish,
Fish I fry.
Stately Johnson, come and buy ! ' '

" How can you," asked Kathleen, "be so
aggravating ? "

" I don't know," said Gerald, returning to prose.
" Want of sleep or intoxication — of success, I
mean. Come where no one can hear us.

"Oh, come to some island where no one can hear,
And beware of the keyhole that's glued to an ear,"

he whispered, opened the door suddenly, and
there, sure enough, was Eliza, stooping without.
She nicked feebly at the wainscot with a duster,
but concealment was vain.

" You know what listeners never hear," said
Jimmy severely.

" I didn't, then — so there ! " said Eliza, whose
listening ears were crimson. So they passed
out, and up the High Street, to sit on the
churchyard Avail and dangle their legs. And all
the way Gerald's lips were shut into a thin,
obstinate line.

" Noiv" said Kathleen. " Oh, Jerry, don't be
a goat ! I'm simply dying to hear what
happened."

" That's better," said Gerald, and he told his
story. As he told it some of the white mystery
and magic of the moonlit gardens got into his
voice and his words, so that when he told of the

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 127

statues that came alive, and the great beast
that was alive through all its stone, Kathleen
thrilled responsive, clutching his arm, and even
Jimmy ceased to kick the Avail with his boot
heels, and listened open-mouthed.

Then came the thrilling tale of the burglars,
and the warning letter Hung into the peaceful
company of Mabel, her aunt, and the bread-and-
butter pudding. Gerald told the story with the
greatest enjoyment and such fulness of detail
that the church clock chimed half-past eleven as
he said, " Having done all that human agency
could do, and further help being despaired of,

our gallant young detective Hullo, there's

Mabel!"

There was. The tail-board of a cart shed her
almost at their feet.

"I couldn't wait any longer," she explained,
•• when you didn't come. And I got a lift.
Has anything more happened ? The burglars
had gone when Bates got to the strong-room. "

" You don't mean to say all that wheeze is
real?" Jimmy asked.

" Of course it's real," said Kathleen. 4i Go on,
Jerry. He's just got to where he threw the
stone into your bread-and-butter pudding,
Mabel. Go on."

Mabel climbed on to the wall. " You've got
visible again quicker than I did,'' she said.

Gerald nodded and resumed :

" Our story must be told in as few Avoids as
possible, OAA T ing to the fish-frying taking place at
twelve, and it's past the half-hour now. Having

128 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

left his missive to do its warning work, Gerald de
Sherlock Holmes sped back, wrapped in invisi-
bility, to the spot where by the light of their
dark-lanterns the burglars were still — still
burgling with the utmost punctuality and
despatch. I didn't see any sense in running
into danger, so I just waited outside the passage
where the steps are — you know ? "

Mabel nodded.

" Presently they came out, very cautiously, of
course, and looked about them. They didn't see
me — so deeming themselves unobserved they
passed in silent Indian file along the passage —
one of the sacks of silver grazed my front part
— and out into the night."

" But which way '? "

" Through the little looking-glass room where
you looked at yourself when you were invisible.
The hero followed swiftly on his invisible tennis-
shoes. The three miscreants instantly sought
the shelter of the groves and passed stealthily
among the rhododendrons and across the park,
and " — his voice dropj)ed and he looked straight
before him at the pinky convolvulus netting a
heap of stones beyond the white dust of the
road — " the stone things that come alive, they
kept looking out from between bushes and
under trees — and / saw them all right, but they
didn't see me. They saw the burglars though,
right enough ; but the burglars couldn't see
them. Rum, wasn't it ? "

"The stone things?" Mabel had to have
them explained to her.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 129

" / never saw them come alive," she said,
" and I've been in the gardens in the evening as
often as often."

"i saw them," said Gerald stiffly.

"I know, I know," Mabel hastened to put
herself right with him ; "what I mean to say is
I shouldn't wonder if they're only visible when
you're mvisible — the liveness of them, I mean,
not the stoniness."

Gerald understood, and I'm sure I hope
you do.

" I shouldn't wonder if you're right," he said.
" The castle garden's enchanted right enough ;
but what I should Like to know is how and why.
I say. come on. I've got to catch Johnson before
twelve. We'll walk as far as the market and
then we'll have to run for it."

"But go on with the adventure," said Mabel.
" You can talk as we go. Oh, do — it is so
aw fully t h rilling ! "

This pleased Gerald, of course.

" Well, I just followed, you know, like in a
dream, and they got out the cavy way — you
know, where we got in — and I jolly well thought
I'd lost them; I had to wait till they'd moved
off down the road so that they shouldn't hear
me rattling the stones, and I had to tear to
catch them up. I took my shoes off — I expect
my stockings are done for. And I followed and
followed and followed and they went through
the place where the poor people live, and right

down to the river. And I say, we must run

for it."

9

130 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

So the story stopped and the running began.

They caught Johnson in his own back-yard
washing at a bench against his own back-door.

" Look here, Johnson," Gerald said, " what'll
you give me if I put you up to winning that
fifty pounds reward ? "

" Halves," said Johnson promptly, " and a
clout 'longside your head if you was coming
any of your nonsense over me."

"It's not nonsense," said Gerald very impres-
sively. " If you'll let us in I'll tell you all about
it. And when you've caught the burglars and
got the swag back you just give me a quid for
luck. I won't ask for more."

" Come along in, then," said Johnson, " if the
young ladies'll excuse the towel. But I bet
you do want something more off of me. Else
why not claim the reward yourself ? "

" Great is the wisdom of Johnson — he speaks
winged words." The children were all in the
cottage now, and the door was shut. " I want
you never to let on who told you. Let them
think it was your own unaided pluck and far-
sightedness."

" Sit you down," said Johnson, "and if you're
kidding you'd best send the little gells home
afore I begin on you."

" I am not kidding," replied Gerald loftily,
" never less. And any one but a policeman would
see Avhy I don't want any one to know it was me.
I found it out at dead of night, in a place where
I wasn't supposed to be ; and there'd be a
beastly row if they found out at home about

^

"Look HERE, JOHNSON," GERALD SAID, " WHAT'LL YOU
GIVE ME IF I PUT YOU UP TO WINNING THAT FIFTY
POUNDS REWARD ?"

132 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

me being out nearly all night. Now do you see,
my bright-eyed daisy '? "

Johnson was now too interested, as Jimmy
said afterwards, to mind what silly names he
was called. He said he did see — and asked to
see more.

" Well, don't you ask any questions, then.
I'll tell you all it's good for you to know. Last
night about eleven I was at Yalding Towers.
No — it doesn't matter how I got there or what
I got there for — and there was a window open
and I got in, and there was a light. And it
was in the strong-room, and there were three
men, putting silver in a bag."

" Was it you give the warning, and they sent
for the police?" Johnson was leaning eagerly
forward, a hand on each knee.

" Yes, that was me. You can let them think
it was you, if you like. You were off duty,
weren't you ? "

" I was," said Johnson, " in the arms of

Murphy "

" Well, the police didn't come quick enough.
But / was there — a lonely detective. And I
followed them."
"You did?"

" And I saw them hide the booty and I know
the other stuff from Houghton Court's in the
same place, and I heard them arrange about
when to take it away."

" Come and show me where," said Johnson,
jumping up so quickly that his Windsor
arm-chair fell over backwards, with a crack,
on the red-brick floor.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 133

" Not so," said Gerald calmly ; "if you go
near the spot before the appointed time you'll
find the silver, but you'll never catch the
thieves."

" You're right there." The policeman picked
up his chair and sat down in it again.
" Well ? "

" Well, there's to be a motor to meet them
in the lane beyond the boat-house by
Sadler's Rents at one o'clock to-night. They'll
get the things out at half-past twelve and
take them along in a boat. So now's your
chance to • fill your pockets with chink and
cover yourself with honour and glory.

" So help me ! " — Johnson was pensive and
doubtful still — " so help me ! you couldn't have
made all this up out of your head."

"Oh yes, I could. But I didn't. Now look
here. It's the chance of your lifetime, Johnson !
A quid for me, and a still tongue for you, and
the job's done. Do you agree? "

" Oh, / agree right enough," said Johnson. " I
agree. But if you're coming any of your
larks "

" Can't you see he isn't ? " Kathleen put in
impatiently. " He's not a liar — we none of
us are."

" If you're not on, say so," said Gerald, " and
I'll find another policeman with more sense."

" I could split about you being out all night,"
said Johnson.

" But you wouldn't be so ungentlemanly,"
said Mabel brightly. " Don't you be so un-

134 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

believing, when we're trying to do you a
good turn."

" If I were you," Gerald advised, " I'd go
to the place where the silver is, with two other
men. You could make a nice little ambush
in the wood-yard — it's close there. And I'd
have two or three more men up trees in the
lane to wait for the motor-car."

" You ought to have been in the force, you
ought," said Johnson admiringly ; "but s'pose
it was a hoax ! "

" Well, then you'd have made an ass of your-
self — I don't suppose it ud be the first time,"
said Jimmy.

" Are you on ? " said Gerald in haste. " Hold
your jaw, Jimmy, you idiot!"

" Yes" said Johnson.

" Then when you're on duty you go down
to the wood-yard, and the place where you
see me blow my nose is the place. The sacks
are tied with string to the posts under the
water. You just stalk by in your dignified
beauty and make a note of the spot. That's
where glory waits you, and when Fame elates
you and you're a sergeant, please remember
me.

Johnson said he was blessed. He said it
more than once, and then remarked that he
was on, and added that he must be off that
instant minute.

Johnson's cottage lies just out of the
town beyond the blacksmith's forge and the
children had come to it through the wood.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 135

They went back the same way, and then
down through the town, and through its
narrow, unsavoury streets to the towing-path
by the timber yard. Here they ran along
the trunks of the big trees, peeped into the
saw-pit, and — the men were away at dinner
and this was a favourite play place of every
boy within miles — made themselves a see-saw
with a fresh cut, sweet-smelling pine plank
and an elm-root.

'•What a ripping place!" said Mabel, breathless
on the see-saw's end. " I believe I like this
better than pretending games or even magic."

" So do I," said Jimmy. " Jerry, don't keep
sniffing so — you'll have no nose left."

" I can't help it," Gerald answered ; " I daren't
use my hankey for fear Johnson's on the look-
out somewhere unseen. I wish I'd thought of
some other signal." Sniff ! " No, nor I
shouldn't want to now if I hadn't got not to.
That's what's so rum. The moment I got down
here and remembered what I'd said about

the signal I began to have a cold — and

Thank goodness ! here he is."

The children, with a fine air of unconcern,
abandoned the see-saw.

"Follow my leader!" Gerald cried, and ran
along a barked oak trunk, the others following.
In and out and round about ran the file of
children, over heaps of logs, under the jutting
ends of piled planks, and just as the policeman's
heavy boots trod the towing-path Gerald halted
at the end of a little landing-stage of rotten

136 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

boards, with a rickety handrail, cried " Pax ! "
and blew his nose with loud fervour.

" Morning," he said immediately.

" Morning," said Johnson. " Got a cold, aint
you ?

" Ah ! I shouldn't have a cold if I'd got boots
like yours," returned Gerald admiringly. " Look
at them. Any one ud know your fairy footstep
a mile off. How do you ever get near enough
to any one to arrest them?" He skipped off the
landing-stage, whispered as he passed Johnson,
" Courage, promptitude, and despatch. That's
the place," and was off again, the active leader
of an active procession.

"We've brought a friend home to dinner,"
said Kathleen, when Eliza opened the door.
"Where's Mademoiselle?"

" Gone to see Yalding Towers. To-day's
show day, you know. An' just you hurry
over your dinners. It's my afternoon out,
and my gentleman friend don't like it if he's
kept waiting."

"All right, we'll eat like lightning," Gerald
promised. " Set another place, there's an angel."

They kept their word. The dinner — it was
minced veal and potatoes and rice-pudding,
perhaps the dullest food in the world — was over
in a quarter of an hour.

"And now," said Mabel, when Eliza and a jug
of hot water had disappeared up the stairs
together, " where's the ring? I ought to put
it back."

" I haven't had a turn yet," said Jimmy.

„js*m-\~' ,■ ■■■'■■

GERALD HALTED AT THE END OF A LITTLE LANDING-STAGE
OF ROTTEN BOARDS.

138 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

„ When we find it Cathy and I ought to have
turns same as yon and Gerald did."

"When you find it ?" Mabel's pale face

turned paler between her dark locks.

" I'm very sorry — we're all very sorry," began
Kathleen, and then the story of the losing had
to be told.

" You couldn't have looked properly," Mabel
protested. " It can't have vanished."

" You don't know what it can do — no more do
we. It's no use getting your quills up, fair lady.
Perhaps vanishing itself is just what it does do.
You see, it came off my hand in the bed. We
looked everywhere."

" Would you mind if / looked?" Mabel's eyes
implored her little hostess. " You see, if it's lost
it's my fault. It's almost the same as stealing.
That Johnson would say it was just the same.
I know he would."

"Let's all look again," said Mabel, jumping up.
" We were rather in a hurry this morning."

So they looked, and they looked. In the
bed, under the bed, under the carpet, under the
furniture. They shook the curtains, they ex-
plored the corners, and found dust and flue,
but no ring. They looked, and they looked.
Everywhere they looked. Jimmy even looked
fixedly at the ceiling, as though he thought the
ring might have bounced up there and stuck.
But it hadn't.

" Then," said Mabel at last, " your housemaid
must have stolen it. That's all. I shall tell her
I think so."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 130

And she would have done it too, but at that
moment the front door banged and they knew
that Eliza had gone forth in all the glory of her
best things to meet her " gentleman friend."

"It's no use" — Mabel was almost in teats:
" look here — will you leave me alone? Perhaps
you others looking distracts me. And I'll go
over every inch of the room by myself."

" Respecting the emotion of their guest, the
kindly charcoal-burners withdrew," said Gerald.
And they closed the door softly from the outside
on Mabel and her search.

They waited for her, of course — politeness
demanded it, and besides, they had to stay at
home to let Mademoiselle in ; though it was a
dazzling day, and Jimmy had just remembered
that Gerald's pockets were full of the money
earned at the fair, and that nothing had yet
been bought with that money, except a few
buns in which he had had no share. And of
course they waited impatiently.

It seemed about an hour, and was really quite
ten minutes, before they heard the bedroom
door open and Mabel's feet on the stairs.

" She hasn't found it," Gerald said.

" How do you know ? " Jimmy asked.

" The way she walks," said Gerald. You can,
in fact, almost always tell whether the thing
has been found that people have gone to look
for by the sound of their feet as they return.
Mabel's feet said "No go" as plain as they
could speak. And her face confirmed the cheer-
less news.

140 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

A sudden and violent knocking at the back
door prevented any one from having to be polite
about how sorry they were, or fanciful about
being sure the ring would turn up soon.

All the servants except Eliza were away on
their holidays, so the children went together to
open the door, because, as Gerald said, if it was
the baker they could buy a cake from him and
eat it for dessert. " That kind of dinner sort of
needs dessert," he said.

But it was not the baker. When they opened
the door they saw in the paved court where the
pump is, and the dust-bin, and the water-butt, a
young man, with his hat very much on one side,
his mouth open under his fair bristly moustache,
and his eyes as nearly round as human eyes can
be. He wore a suit of a bright mustard colour,
a blue necktie, and a goldish watch-chain across
his waistcoat. His body was thrown back and
his right arm stretched out towards the door,
and his expression was that of a person who is
being dragged somewhere against his will. He
looked so strange that Kathleen tried to shut
the door in his face, murmuring, " Escaped
insane." But the door would not close. There
was something in the way.

" Leave go of me ! " said the young man.

" Ho yus ! I'll leave go of you ! " It was the
voice of Eliza — but no Eliza could be seen.

" Who's got hold of you ? " asked Kathleen.

" She has, miss," replied the unhappy stranger.

" Who's she ? " asked Kathleen, to gain time,
as she afterwards explained, for she now knew

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 141

well enough that what was keeping the door
open was Eliza's unseen foot.

"My fyongsay, miss. At least it sounds like
her voice, and it feels like her bones, but some-
thing's come over me, miss, an' I can't see her."

" That's what he keeps on saving," said Eliza's
voice. "E's my gentleman friend; is 'e gone
dotty, or is it me ? "

" Both, I shouldn't wonder," said Jimmy.

"Now," said Eliza, "you call yourself a man :
you look me in the face and say you can't
see me."

" Well — I can't," said the wretched gentleman
friend.

" If Pel stolen a ring," said Gerald, looking at
the sky, "I should go indoors and be quiet, not
stand at the back door and make an exhibition
of myself."

"Not much exhibition about her," whispered
Jimmy; "good old ring!"

"I haven't stolen anything," said the gentle-
man friend. " Here, you leave me be. It's my
eyes has gone wrong. Leave go of me, d'ye
hear?"

Suddenly his hand dropped and he staggered
back against the water-butt. Eliza had " left go"
of him. She pushed past the children, shoving
them aside with her invisible elbows. Gerald
caught her by the arm with one hand, felt f oi-
lier ear with the other, and whispered, "You

stand still and don't say a word. If you do

well, what's to stop me from sending for the
l)olice ? "

HE STAGGERED BACK AGAINST THE WATER-BUTT,

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 143

Eliza did not know what there was to stop
him. So she did as she was told, and stood
invisible and silent, save for a sort of blowing,
snorting noise peculiar to her when she was out
of breath.

The mustard-coloured young man had re-
covered his balance, and stood looking at the
children with eyes, if possible, rounder than
before.

-What is it?" he gasped feebly. "What's
up ? What's it all about ? "

" If you don't know, I'm afraid we can't tell
you," said Gerald politely.

" Have I been talking very strange-like ? " he
asked, taking off his hat and passing his hand
over his forehead.

"Very," said Mabel.

" I hope I haven't said anything that wasn't
good manners," he said anxiously.

" Not at all," said Kathleen. " You only said
your fiancee had hold of your hand, and that
you couldn't see her."

" No more I can."

" No more can we," said Mabel.

" But I couldn't have dreamed it, and then
come along here making a penny show of my-
self like this, could I ? "

" You know best," said Gerald courteously.

" But," the mustard-coloured victim almost
screamed, " do you mean to tell me . . ."

" I don't mean to tell you anything," said
Gerald quite truly, " but 111 give you a bit of
advice. You go home and lie down a bit and

144 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

put a wet rag on your head. You'll be all right
to-morrow."

" But I haven't "

" / should," said Mabel ; " the sun's very hot,
you know."

" I feel all right now," he said, " but — well,
I can only say I'm sorry, that's all I can say.
I've never been taken like this before, miss.
I'm not subject to it — don't you think that.

But I could have sworn Eliza Aint she

gone out to meet me ? "

" Eliza's indoors," said Mabel. " She can't
come out to meet anybody to-day."

"You -won't tell her about me carrying on this
way, will you, miss ? It might set her against
me if she thought I was liable to fits, which I
never was from a child."

" We won't tell Eliza anything about you."

" And you'll overlook the liberty ? "

" Of course. We know you couldn't help it,"
said Kathleen. " You go home and lie down.
I'm sure you must need it. Good-afternoon."

" Good-afternoon, I'm sure, miss," he said
dreamily. " All the same I can feel the print of
her finger-bones on my hand while I'm saying-
it. And you won't let it get round to my boss —
my employer I mean ? Fits of all sorts are
against a man in any trade."

" No, no, no, it's all right — goodbye" said
every one. And a silence fell as he went slowly
round the water-butt and the green yard-gate
shut behind him. The silence was broken by
Eliza.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 145

" Give me up ! " she said. " Give me up to
break my heart in a prison cell ! "

There was a sudden splash, and a round wet
drop lay on the doorstep.

" Thunder shower," said Jimmy ; but it was a
tear from Eliza.

" Give me up," she went on, " give me up " —
splash — "but don't let me be took here in the
town where I'm known and respected" — splash.
"I'll walk ten miles to be took by a strange
police — not Johnson as keeps company with my
own cousin" — splash. " But I do thank you for
one thing. You didn't tell Elf as I'd stolen the
ring. And T didn't" — splash — "I only sort of
borrowed it, it being my day out, and my
gentleman friend such a toff, like you can sec
for yourselves."

The children had watched, spellbound, the
interesting tears that became visible as they
rolled off the invisible nose of the miserable
Eliza. Now Gerald roused himself, and spoke.

" It's no use your talking," he said. " We
can't see you ! "

" That's what he said," said Eliza's voice,
"but "

" You can't see yourself," Gerald went on.
•• Where's your hand ? "

Eliza, no doubt, tried to see it, and of course
failed ; for instantly, with a shriek that might
have brought the police if there had been any
about, she went into a violent fit of hysterics.
The children did what they could, everything
that they had read of in books as suitable to

10

146 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

such occasions, but it is extremely difficult to do
the right thing with an invisible housemaid in
strong hysterics and her best clothes. That was
why the best hat was found, later on, to be
completely ruined, and why the best blue dress
was never quite itself again. And as they were
burning bits of the feather dusting-brush as
nearly under Eliza's nose as they could guess, a
sudden spurt of flame and a horrible smell, as the
flame died between the quick hands of Gerald,
showed but too plainly that Eliza's feather
boa had tried to help.

It did help. Eliza "came to" with a deep
sob and said, " Don't burn me real ostrich
stole ; I'm better now."

They helped her up and she sat down on the
bottom step, and the children explained to her
very carefully and quite kindly that she really
was invisible, and that if you steal — or even
borrow — rings you can never be sure what will
happen to you.

" But 'ave I got to go on stopping like this,"
she moaned, when they had fetched the little
mahogany looking-glass from its nail over the
kitchen sink, and convinced her that she was
really invisible, "for ever and ever? An' we
was to a bin married come Easter. No one
won't marry a gell as 'e can't see. It aint
likely."

" No, not for ever and ever," said Mabel
kindly, " but you've got to go through with
it — like measles. I expect you'll be all right
to-morrow."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 147

"To-night, / think," said Gerald.

" We'll help you all we can, and not tell
any one," said Kathleen.

" Not even the police," said Jimmy.

"Now let's get Mademoiselle's tea ready," said
Gerald.

"And ours," said Jimmy.

" No," said Gerald , " we'll have our tea out.
We'll have a picnic and we'll take Eliza. I'll go
out and get the cakes."

" / shan't eat no cake, Master Jerry," said
Eliza's voice, ' ; so don't you think it. You'd see
it going down inside my chest. It wouldn't
be what I should call nice of me to have cake
showing through me in the open air. Oh, it's
a dreadful judgment — just for a borrow !"

They reassured her, set the tea, deputed
Kathleen to let in Mademoiselle — who came
home tired and a little sad, it seemed — waited for
her and Gerald and the cakes, and started off for
Y aiding Towers.

" Picnic parties aren't allowed," said Mabel.

" Ours will be," said Gerald briefly. " Now,
Eliza, you catch on to Kathleen's arm and
I'll walk behind to conceal your shadow. My
aunt ! take your hat off. It makes your
shadow look like I don't know what. People
will think we're the county lunatic asylum
turned loose."

It was then that the hat, becoming visible in
Kathleen's hand, showed how little of the
sprinkled water had gone where it was meant
to go — on Eliza's face.

148 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" Me best 'at," said Eliza, and there was a
silence with sniffs in it.

"Look here," said Mabel, "yon cheer up. Just
you think this is all a dream. It's just the kind
of thing you might dream if your conscience
had got pains in it about the ring."

" But will I wake up again ? "

" Oh yes, you'll wake up again. Now we're
going to bandage your eyes and take you
through a very small door, and don't you resist,
or we'll bring a policeman into the dream like
a shot."

I have not time to describe Eliza's entrance
into the cave. She went head first : the girls
propelled and the boys received her. If Gerald
had not thought of tying her hands some one
would certainly have been scratched. As it was
Mabel's hand was scraped between the cold rock
and a passionate boot-heel. Nor will I tell
you all that she said as they led her along the
fern-bordered gully and through the arch into
the wonderland of Italian scenery. She had but
little language left when they removed her
bandage under a weeping willow where a statue
of Diana,. bow in hand, stood poised on one toe,
a most unsuitable attitude for archery, I have
always thought.

"Now," said Gerald, "it's all over— nothing
but niceness now and cake and things."

" It's time we did have our tea," said Jimmy.
And it was.

Eliza, once convinced that her chest, though
invisible, was not transparent, and that her

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 149

companions could not by looking through it
count how many buns she had eaten, made an
excellent meal. So did the others. If you want
really to enjoy your tea, have minced veal and
potatoes and rice-pudding for dinner, with
several hours of excitement to follow, and
take your tea late.

The soft, cool green and grey of the garden
were changing — the green grew golden, the
shadows black, and the lake where the swans
were mirrored upside down, under the Temple
of Phcebus, was bathed in rosy light from the
little fluffy clouds that lay opposite the sunset.

" It is pretty," said Eliza, " just like a picture-
postcard, aint it? — the tuppenny kind."

" I ought to be getting home," said Mabel.

" I can't go home like this. I'd stay and be
a savage and live in that white hut if it had any
walls and doors," said Eliza.

" She means the Temple of Dionysus," said
Mabel, pointing to it.

The sun set suddenly behind the line of black
fir-trees on the top of the slope, and the white
temple, that had been pink, turned grey.

" It would be a very nice place to live in even
as it is," said Kathleen.

" Draughty," said Eliza, " and law, what a lot
of steps to clean ! What they make houses for

without no walls to 'em? Who'd live in "

She broke off, stared, and added : " What's that ? "

"What?"

" That white thing coming down the steps.
Why, it's a young man in statooary."

150 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" The statues do come alive here, after sunset,"
said Gerald in very matter-of-fact tones.

" I see they do." Eliza did not seem at all
surprised or alarmed. "There's another of 'em.
Look at them little wings to his feet like
pigeons."

" I expect that's Mercury," said Gerald.

" It's ' Hermes ' under the statue that's got
wings on its feet," said Mabel, " but "

" / don't see any statues," said Jimmy. " What
are you punching me for ? "

"Don't you see?" Gerald whispered; but he
need not have been so troubled, for all Eliza's
attention was with her wandering eyes that
followed hither and thither the quick move-
ments of unseen statues. " Don't you see ?
The statues come alive when the sun goes
down — and you can't see them unless you're
invisible — and / — -if you do see them you're not
frightened — unless you touch them."

" Let's get her to touch one and see," said
Jimmy,

" 'E's lep' into the water," said Eliza in a rapt
voice. "My, can't he swim neither! And the
one with the pigeons' wings is flying all over
the lake having larks with 'im. I do call that
pretty. It's like cupids as you see on wedding-
cakes. And here's another of 'em, a little chap
with long ears and a baby deer galloping
alongside ! An' look at the lady with the
biby, throwing it up and catching it like as
if it was a ball. I wonder she ain't afraid.
But it's pretty to see 'em."

" 'E'S LEP' INTO THE WATER," SAID ELIZA IN A RAPT VOICE.
"MY, CAN'T HE SWIM NEITHER!"

152 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

The broad park lay stretched before the
children in growing greyness and a stillness
that deepened. Amid the thickening shadows
they could see the statues gleam white and
motionless. But Eliza saw other things. She
watched in silence presently, and they watched
silently, and the evening fell like a veil that
grew heavier and blacker. And it was night.
And the moon came up above the trees.

" Oh," cried Eliza suddenly, " here's the dear
little boy with the deer — he's coming right for
me, bless his heart ! "

Next moment she was screaming, and her
screams grew fainter and there was the sound
of swift boots on gravel.

" Come on ! " cried Gerald ; " she touched it,
and then she was frightened. Just like I was.
Run ! she'll send every one in the town mad if
she gets there like that. Just a voice and boots !
Run ! Run ! "

They ran. But Eliza had the start of them.
Also when she ran on the grass they could not
hear her footsteps and had to wait for the
sound of leather on far-away gravel. Also
she was driven by fear, and fear drives fast.

She went, it seemed, the nearest way, invisibly
through the waxing moonlight, seeing she only
knew what amid the glades and groves.

" I'll stop here ; see you to-morrow," gasped
Mabel, as the loud pursuers followed Eliza's
clatter across the terrace. " She's gone through
the stable yard."

" The back way," Gerald panted as they turned

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 153

the corner of their own street, and he and
Jimmy swung in past the water-butt.

An unseen but agitated presence seemed to
be fumbling with the locked back-door. The
church clock struck the half-hour.

" Half-past nine," Gerald had just breath to
say. " Pull at the ring. Perhaps it'll come
off now."

He spoke to the bare doorstep. But it was
Eliza, dishevelled, breathless, her hair coming
down, her collar crooked, her dress twisted
and disordered, who suddenly held out a hand
— a hand that they could see; and in the hand,
plainly visible in the moonlight, the dark circle
of the magic ring.

" 'Alt* a mo ! " said Eliza's gentleman friend
next morning. He was waiting for her when
she opened the door with pail and hearthstone
in her hand. " Sorry you couldn't come out
yesterday."

" So'm I." Eliza swept the w T et flannel along
the top step. " What did you do ? "

" I 'ad a bit of a headache," said the gentle-
man friend. "I laid down most of the afternoon.
What were you up to ? "

" Oh, nothing pertickler," said Eliza.

" Then it was all a dream," she said, when
he was gone ; " but it'll be a lesson to me not

m m

IT WAS ELIZA, DISHEVELLED, BREATHLESS, HER HAIR
COMING DOWN, HER COLLAR CROOKED, HER DRESS
TWISTED AND DISORDERED, WHO SUDDENLY HELD OUT
A HAND.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 155

to meddle with anybody's old ring again in a
hurry."

" So they didn't tell 'er about me behaving
like I did," said he as he went — "sun, I suppose
-like our Army in India. I hope I aint going
to be liable to it. that's all!"

CHAPTER VI

Johnson was the hero of the hour. It was he
who had tracked the burglars, laid his plans,
and recovered the lost silver. He had not
thrown the stone — public opinion decided that
Mabel and her aunt must have been mistaken
in supposing that there was a stone at all. But
he did not deny the warning letter. It was
Gerald who went out after breakfast to buy
the newspaper, and who read aloud to the
others the two columns of fiction which were
the Liddlesby Observer s report of the facts.
As he read every mouth opened wider and
wider, and when he ceased with " this gifted
fellow-townsman with detective instincts which
outrival those of Messrs. Lecoq and Holmes,
and whose promotion is now assured," there
was quite a blank silence.

" Well," said Jimmy, breaking it, " he doesn't
stick it on neither, does he ? "

" I feel," said Kathleen, " as if it was our fault
— as if it was us had told all these whoppers ;
because if it hadn't been for you they couldn't
have, Jerry. How could he say all that ? "

" Well," said Gerald, trying to be fair, " you

156

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 157

know, after all, the chap had to say something.

I'm glad I " He stopped abruptly.

" You're glad you what ? "

" No matter," said he, with an air of putting
away affairs of state. " Now, what are we
going to do to-day ? The faithful Mabel
approaches ; she will want her ring. And you
and Jimmy want it too. Oh, I know. Made-
moiselle hasn't had any attention paid to her
for more days than our hero likes to confess."
" I wish you wouldn't always call yourself
'our hero,'" said Jimmy; "you aren't mine,
anyhow."

"You're both of you mine" said Kathleen
hastily.

"Good little girl." Gerald smiled annoyingly.
" Keep baby brother in a good temper till
Nursic comes back."

"You're not going oat without us?" Kathleen
asked in haste.

" ' I haste away,

'Tis market day,' "

sang Gerald,

" ' And in the market there
Buy roses for my fair.'

If you want to come too, get your boots on,
and look slippy about it."

" I don't want to come," said Jimmy, and
sniffed.

Kathleen turned a despairing look on Gerald.

" Oh, James, James," said Gerald sadly, " how

158 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

difficult you make it for me to forget that
you're my little brother ! If ever I treat you
like one of the other chaps, and rot you like
I should Turner or Moberley or any of my
pals — well, this is what comes of it."

" You don't call them your baby brothers,"
said Jimmy, and truly.

" No ; and I'll take precious good care I don't
call you it again. Come on, my hero and
heroine. The devoted Mesrour is your salaam-
ing slave."

The three met Mabel opportunely at the corner
of the square where every Friday the stalls and
the awnings and the green umbrellas were
pitched, and poultry, pork, pottery, vegetables,
drapery, sweets, toys, tools, mirrors, and all
sorts of other interesting merchandise were
spread out on trestle tables, piled on carts
whose horses were stabled and whose shafts
were held in place by piled wooden cases, or
laid out, as in the case of crockery and hard-
ware, on the bare flagstones of the market-
place.

The sun was shilling with great goodwill,
and, as Mabel remarked, " all Nature looked
smiling and gay." There were a few bunches
of flowers among the vegetables, and the
children hesitated, balanced in choice.

" Mignonette is sweet," said Mabel.

" Roses are roses,' said Kathleen.

" Carnations are tuppence," said Jimmy ; and
Gerald, sniffing among the bunches of tightly-
tied tea-roses, agreed that this settled it.

THE ENCHAXTED CASTLE 150

So the carnations were bought, a bunch of
yellow ones, like sulphur, a bunch of white ones
like clotted cream, and a bunch of red ones like
the cheeks of the doll that Kathleen never
played with. They took the carnations home,
and Kathleen's green hair-ribbon came in
beautifully for tying them up. which was
hastily done on the doorstep.

Then discreetly Gerald knocked at the door
of the drawing-room, where Mademoiselle
seemed to sit all day.

" Entrez ! " came her voice ; and Gerald
entered. She was not reading, as usual, but
bent over a sketch-book ; on the table was
an open colour-box of un-English appearance,
and a box of that slate-coloured liquid so
familiar alike to the greatest artist in water-
colours and to the humblest child with a six-
penny paint-box.

"With all of our loves," said Gerald, laying
the flowers down suddenly before her.

" But it is that you are a dear child. For
this it must that I embrace you — no?" And
before Gerald could explain that he was too
old, she kissed him with little quick French
pecks on the two cheeks.

"Are you painting?" he asked hurriedly, to
hide his annoyance at being treated like a baby.

" I achieve a sketch of yesterday," she
answered ; and before he had time to wonder
what yesterday would look like in a picture
she showed him a beautiful and exact sketch
of Yalding Towers.

SHE KISSED HIM WITH LITTLE QUICK FRENCH PECKS,

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 161

" Oh, I say — ripping ! " was the critic's com-
ment. " I say, mayn't the others come and
see?" The others came, including Mabel, who
stood awkwardly behind the rest, and looked
over Jimmy's shoulder.

" I say, you are clever," said Gerald respect-
fully.

" To what good to have the talent, when
one must pass one's life at teaching the
infants ? " said Mademoiselle.

" It must be fairly beastly," Gerald owned.

" You, too, see the design ? " Mademoiselle
asked Mabel, adding : "A friend from the
town, yes ? "

" How do you do ? " said Mabel politely.
" No, I'm not from the town. I live at
Yalding Towers."

The name seemed to impress Mademoiselle
very much. Gerald anxiously hoped in his
own mind that she was not a snob.

" Yalding Towers," she repeated, " but this
is very extraordinary. Is it possible that you
arc then of the family of Lord Yalding?"

" He hasn't any family," said Mabel ; " he's
not married."

"I would say are you — how you say? —
cousin — sister — niece ? "

" No," said Mabel, flushing hotly, " I'm
nothing grand at all. I'm Lord Yalding's
housekeeper's niece."

" But you know Lord Yalding, is it not ? "

" No," said Mabel, " I've never seen him."

" He comes then never to his chateau ? "

11

162 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

"Not since I've lived there. But he's coming
next week."

" Why lives he not there ? " Mademoiselle
asked.

" Auntie say he's too poor," said Mabel, and
proceeded to tell the tale as she had heard it
in the housekeeper's room : how Lord Yald-
ing's uncle had left all the money he could
leave away from Lord Yalding to Lord Yald-
ing's second cousin, and poor Lord Yalding
had only just enough to keep the old place
in repair, and to live very quietly indeed some-
where else, but not enough to keep the house
open or to live there ; and how he couldn't
sell the house because it was " in tale."

"What is it then— in tail?" asked Made-
moiselle.

" In a tale that the lawyers write out,"
said Mabel, proud of her knowledge and
nattered by the deep interest of the French
governess ; " and when once they've put your
house in one of their tales you can't sell it
or give it away, but you have to leave it to
your son, even if you don't want to."

" But how his uncle could he be so cruel — to
leave him the chateau and no money ? " Made-
moiselle asked ; and Kathleen and Jimmy stood
amazed at the sudden keenness of her interest
in what seemed to them the dullest story.

" Oh, I can tell you that too," said Mabel.
" Lord Yalding wanted to marry a lady his
uncle didn't want him to, a barmaid or a
ballet lady or something, and he wouldn't

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 163

give her up, and his uncle said. ' Well then,'
and left everything to the cousin."

" And you say he is not married."

" No — the lady went into a convent ; I expect
she's bricked-up alive by now.''

" Bricked ? "

"In a wall, you know," said Mabel, pointing
explainingly at the pink and gilt roses of the
wall-paper, " shut up to kill them. That's what
they do to you in convents."

" Xot at all," said Mademoiselle ; " in con-
vents are very kind good women ; there is
but one thing in convents that is detestable —
the locks on the doors. Sometimes people can-
not get out, especially when they are very
young and their relations have placed them
there for their welfare and happiness. But
brick — how you say it? — enwalling ladies to
kill them. No — it does itself never. And
this Lord — he did not then seek his lady?"

" Oh, yes — he sought her right enough,"
Mabel assured her; "but there are millions
of convents, you know, and he had no idea
where to look, and they sent back his letters
from the post-office, and "

" Ciel ! " cried Mademoiselle, " but it seems
that one knows all in the housekeeper's
saloon."

" Pretty well all," said Mabel simply.

"And you think he will find her? No?"

"Oh, he'll find her all right," said Mabel,
"when he's old and broken down, you know —
and dying; and then a gentle sister of charity

164 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

will soothe his pillow, and just when he's dying
she'll reveal herself and say : ' My own lost love ! '
and his face will light up with a wonderful joy
and he'll expire with her beloved name on his
parched lips."

Mademoiselle's was the silence of sheer
astonishment. " You do the prophesy, it
appears ? " she said at last.

" Oh no," said Mabel, " I got that out of
a book. I can tell you lots more fatal love
stories any time you like."

The French governess gave a little jump, as
though she had suddenly remembered some-
thing.

" It is nearly dinner-time," she said. " Your
friend — Mabelle, yes — will be your convivial,
and in her honour we will make a little
feast. My beautiful flowers — put them to the
water, Kathleen. I run to buy the cakes.
Wash the hands, all, and be ready when I
return."

Smiling and nodding to the children, she left
them, and ran up the stairs.

" Just as if she was young," said Kathleen.

" She w young," said Mabel. " Heaps of ladies
have offers of marriage when they're no younger
than her. I've seen lots of weddings too, with
much older brides. And why didn't you tell me
she was so beautiful ? "

" Is she ?" asked Kathleen.

" Of course she is ; and what a darling to
think of cakes for me, and calling me a con-
vivial ! "

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 165

"Look here," said Gerald, "I call this jolly
decent of her. You know, governesses never
have more than the meanest pittance, just
enough to sustain life, and here she is spending
her little all on us. Supposing we just don't go
out to-day, but play with her instead. I expect
she's most awfully bored really."

" Would she really like it ? " Kathleen won-
dered. " Aunt Emily says grown-ups never
really like playing. They do it to please us."

" They little know," Gerald answered, " how
often we do it to please them."

" We've got to do that dressing-up with the
Princess clothes anyhow — we said we would,"
said Kathleen. " Let's treat her to that."

" Rather near tea-time," urged Jimmy, " so
that there'll be a fortunate interruption and the
play won't go on for ever."

"I suppose all the things are safe?" Mabel
asked.

" Quite. I told you where I put them. Come
on, Jimmy; let's help lay the table. We'll get
Eliza to put out the best china."

They went.

" It was lucky," said Gerald, struck by a
sudden thought, " that the burglars didn't go
for the diamonds in the treasure-chamber."

" They couldn't," said Mabel almost in a
whisper ; " they didn't know about them. I
don't believe anybody knows about them, except
me — and you, and you're sworn to secrecy."
This, you will remember, had been done almost
at the beginning. " I know aunt doesn't know.

166 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

I just found out the spring by accident. Lord
Yalding's kept the secret well."

" I wish I'd got a secret like that to keep,"
said Gerald.

" If the burglars do know," said Mabel, " it'll
all come out at the trial. Lawyers make you
tell everything you know at trials, and a lot of
lies besides."

" There won't be any trial," said Gerald, kick-
ing the leg of the piano thoughtfully.

"No trial?"

" It said in the paper," Gerald went on slowly,
" ' The miscreants must have received warning
from a confederate, for the admirable prepara-
tions to arrest them as they returned for their
ill-gotten plunder were unavailing. But the
police have a clue.' '

" What a pity ! " said Mabel.

" You needn't worry — they haven't got any
old clue," said Gerald, still attentive to the piano
leg.

" I didn't mean the clue ; I meant the con-
federate."

" It's a pity you think he's a pity, because he
was me" said Gerald, standing up and leaving
the piano leg alone. He looked straight before
him, as the boy on the burning deck may have
looked.

" I couldn't help it," he said. " I know you'll
think I'm a criminal, but I couldn't do it. I
don't know how detectives can. I went over
a prison once, with father; and after I'd given
the tip to Johnson I remembered that, and I

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 167

just couldn't. I know I'm a beast, and not
worthy to be a British citizen."

" I think it was rather nice of you," said
Mabel kindly. "How did you warn them?"

" I just shoved a paper under the man's door
— the one that I knew where he lived — to tell
him to lie low.''

" Oh ! do tell me — what did you put on it
exactly?" Mabel warmed to this new interest.

" It said : ' The police know all except your
names. Be virtuous and you are safe. But if
there's any more burgling I shall split and you
may rely on that from a friend.' I know it was
wrong, but I couldn't help it. Don't tell the
others. They wouldn't understand why I did it.
I don't understand it myself."

" I do," said Mabel : " it's because you've got a
kind and noble heart."

" Kind fiddlestick, my good child ! " said Gerald,
suddenly losing the burning boy expression and
becoming in a flash entirely himself. " Cut
along and wash your hands ; you're as black as
ink."

" So are you.*' said Mabel, " and I'm not. It's
dye with me. Auntie was dyeing a blouse this
morning. It told you how in Home Drivel — and
she's as black as ink too, and the blouse is all
streaky. Pity the ring won't make just parts of
you invisible — the dirt, for instance."

" Perhaps," Gerald said unexpectedly, " it
won't make even all of you invisible again."

"Why not? You haven't been doing any-
thing to it — have you ? " Mabel sharply asked.

168 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" No ; but didn't you notice you were in-
visible twenty-one hours ; I was fourteen hours
invisible, and Eliza only seven — that's seven less
each time. And now we've come to "

" How frightfully good you are at sums ! " said
Mabel, awestruck.

" You see, it's got seven hours less each time,
and seven from seven is nought ; it's got to be
something different this time. And then after-
wards — it can't be minus seven, because I don't
see how — unless it made you more visible —
thicker, you know."

" Dont ! " said Mabel ; " you make my head go
round."

" And there's another odd thing," Gerald went
on ; " when you're invisible your relations don't
love you. Look at your aunt, and Cathy never
turning a hair at me going burgling. We
haven't got to the bottom of that ring yet.
Crikey ! here's Mademoiselle with the cakes.
Run, bold bandits — wash for your lives ! "

They ran.

It was not cakes only ; it was plums and
grapes and jam tarts and soda-water and rasp-
berry vinegar, and chocolates in pretty boxes
and " pure, thick, rich " cream in brown jugs,
also a big bunch of roses. Mademoiselle was
strangely merry, for a governess. She served
out the cakes and tarts with a liberal hand,
made wreaths of the flowers for all their heads
— she was not eating much herself — drank the
health of Mabel, as the guest of the day, in the
beautiful pink drink that comes from mixing

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 169

raspberry vinegar and soda-water, and actually
persuaded Jimmy to wear his wreath, on the
ground that the Greek gods as well as the
goddesses always wore wreaths at a feast.

There never was such a feast provided by any
French governess since French governesses
began. There were jokes and stories and
laughter. Jimmy showed all those tricks with
forks and corks and matches and apples which
are so deservedly popular. Mademoiselle told
them stories of her own school-days when she
was " a quite little girl with two tight tresses —
so," and when they could not understand the
tresses, called for paper and pencil and drew
the loveliest little picture of herself when she
was a child with two short fat pig-tails sticking
out from her head like knitting-needles from a
ball of dark worsted. Then she drew pictures
of everything they asked for, till Mabel pulled
Gerald's jacket and whispered : " The acting ! "

" Draw us the front of a theatre," said Gerald
tactfully, " a French theatre."

"They are the same thing as the English
theatres," Mademoiselle told him.

" Do you like acting — the theatre, I mean ? "

" But yes — I love it."

" All right," said Gerald briefly. " We'll act
a play for you — now — this afternoon if you
like."

" Eliza will be washing up," Cathy whispered,
" and she was promised to see it."

" Or this evening," said Gerald ; " and please,
Mademoiselle, may Eliza come in and look on ? "

170 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" But certainly," said Mademoiselle ; " amuse
yourselves well, my children."

" But it's you" said Mabel suddenly, " that we
want to amuse. Because we love you very much
— don't we, all of you ? "

'• Yes," the chorus came unhesitatingly.
Though the others would never have thought
of saying such a thing on their own account.
Yet, as Mabel said it, they found to their
surprise that it was true.

'■ Tiens ! " said Mademoiselle, " you love the
old French governess ? Impossible," and she
spoke rather indistinctly.

" You're not old," said Mabel ; " at least not so
very," she added brightly, " and you're as lovely
as a Princess."

"Go then, flatteress!" said Mademoiselle, laugh-
ing ; and Mabel went. The others were already
half-way up the stairs.

Mademoiselle sat in the drawing-room as
usual, and it was a good thing that she was
not engaged in serious study, for it seemed that
the door opened and shut almost ceaselessly all
throughout the afternoon. Might they have
the embroidered antimacassars and the sofa
cushions ? Might they have the clothes-line out
of the washhouse ? Eliza said they mightn't,
but might they ? Might they have the sheep-
skin hearth-rugs ? Might they have tea in the
garden, because they had almost got the stage
ready in the dining-room, and Eliza wanted to
set tea ? Could Mademoiselle lend them any
coloured clothes — scarves or dressing-gowns, or

DOWN CAME THE LOVELIEST BLUE-BLACK HAIR.

172 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

anything bright ? Yes, Mademoiselle could, and
did — silk things, surprisingly lovely for a gover-
ness to have. Had Mademoiselle any rouge?

They had always heard that French ladies

No. Mademoiselle hadn't — and to judge by the
colour of her face, Mademoiselle didn't need it.
Did Mademoiselle think the chemist sold rouge
— or had she any false hair to spare ? At this
challenge Mademoiselle's pale fingers pulled out
a dozen hairpins, and down came the loveliest
blue-black hair, hanging to her knees in straight,
heavy lines.

"No, you terrible infants," she cried. "I have
not the false hair, nor the rouge. And my teeth
— you want them also, without doubt? "

She showed them in a laugh.

" I said you were a Princess," said Mabel, " and
now I know. You're Rupunzel. Do always
wear your hair like that ! May we have the
peacock fans, please, off the mantelpiece, and
the things that loop back the curtains, and all
the handkerchiefs you've got?"

Mademoiselle denied them nothing. They had
the fans and the handkerchiefs and some large
sheets of expensive drawing-paper out of the
school cupboard, and Mademoiselle's best sable
paint-brush and her paint-box.

" Who would have thought," murmured Gerald,
pensively sucking the brush and gazing at the
paper mask he had just painted, " that she
was such a brick in disguise ? I wonder why
crimson lake always tastes just like Liebig's
Extract."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 173

Everything was pleasant that day somehow.
There are some days like that, yon know, when
everything goes well from the very beginning ;
all the things yon want are in their places,
nobody misunderstands you, and all that you do
turns out admirably. How different from those
other days which we all know too well, when
your shoe-lace breaks, your comb is mislaid,
your brush spins on its back on the floor and
lands under the bed where you can't get at it —
you drop the soap, your buttons come off, an
eyelash gets into your eye, you have used your
last clean handkerchief, your collar is frayed at
the edge and cuts your neck, and at the very
last moment your suspender breaks, and there
is no string. On such a day as this you are
naturally late for breakfast, and every one
thinks you did it on purpose. And the day goes
on and on, getting worse and worse — you mislay
your exercise-book, you drop your arithmetic in
the mud, your pencil breaks, and when you open
your knife to sharpen the pencil you split your
nail. On such a day you jam your thumb in
doors, and muddle the messages you are sent
on by grown-ups. You upset your tea, and your
bread-and-butter won't hold together for a
moment. And when at last you get to bed —
usually in disgrace — it is no comfort at all to
you to know that not a single bit of it is your
own fault.

This day was not one of those days, as you
will have noticed. Even the tea in the garden —
there was a bricked bit by a rockery that made

174 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

a steady floor for the tea-table — was most
delightful, though the thoughts of four out of
the five Avere busy with the coming play, and
the fifth had thoughts of her own that had
had nothing to do with tea or acting.

Then there was an interval of slamming doors,
interesting silences, feet that flew up and down
stairs.

It was still good daylight when the dinner-bell
rang — the signal had been agreed upon at tea-
time, and carefully explained to Eliza. Made-
moiselle laid down her book and passed out of
the sunset-yellowed hall into the faint yellow
gaslight of the dining-room. The giggling Eliza
held the door open before her, and followed her
in. The shutters had been closed — streaks of
daylight showed above and below them. The
green- and-black tablecloths of the school dining-
tables were supported on the clothes-line from
the backyard. The line sagged in a graceful
curve, but it answered its purpose of supporting
the curtains which concealed that part of the
room which was the stage.

Rows of chairs had been placed across the
other end of the room — all the chairs in the
house, as it seemed — and Mademoiselle started
violently when she saw that fully half a dozen
of these chairs were occupied. And by the
queerest people, too — an old woman with a
poke bonnet tied under her chin with a red
handkerchief, a lady in a large straw hat
wreathed in flowers and the oddest hands that
stuck out over the chair in front of her, several

SHE SAW THAT FULLY HALF A DOZEN OF THESE CHAIRS WERE OCCUPIED,
AND BY THE QUEEREST PEOPLE.

176 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

men with strange, clumsy figures, and all with
hats on.

" But," whispered Mademoiselle, through the
chinks of the tablecloths, " you have then invited
other friends ? You should have asked me, my
children."

Laughter and something like a " hurrah "
answered her from behind the folds of the
curtaining tablecloths.

"All right, Mademoiselle Rapunzel," cried
Mabel ; " turn the gas up. It's only part of the
entertainment."

Eliza, still giggling, pushed through the lines
of chairs, knocking off the hat of one of the
visitors as she did so, and turned up the three
incandescent burners.

Mademoiselle looked at the figure seated
nearest to her, stooped to look more closely,
half laughed, quite screamed, and sat down
suddenly.

" Oh ! " she cried, " they are not alive ! "

Eliza, with a much louder scream, had found
out the same thing and announced it differently.
" They ain't got no insides," said she. The seven
members of the audience seated among the
wilderness of chairs had, indeed, no insides to
speak of. Their bodies were bolsters and rolled-
up blankets, their spines were broom-handles,
and their arm and leg bones were hockey sticks
and umbrellas. Their shoulders were the wooden
cross-pieces that Mademoiselle used for keeping
her jackets in shape ; their hands were gloves
stuffed out with handkerchiefs ; and their faces

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 177

were the paper masks painted in the after-
noon by the untutored brush of Gerald, tied
on to the round heads made of the ends of
stuffed bolster-cases. The faces were really
rather dreadful. Gerald had done his best, but
even after his best had been done you would
hardly have known they were faces, some of
them, if they hadn't been in the positions which
faces usually occupy, between the collar and the
hat. Their eyebrows were furious with lamp-
black frowns — their eyes the size, and almost
the shape, of five-shilling pieces, and on their
lips and cheeks had been spent much crimson
lake and nearly the whole of a half-pan of
vermilion.

" You have made yourself an auditors, yes ?
Bravo ! " cried Mademoiselle, recovering herself
and beginning to clap. And to the sound of
that clapping the curtain went up — or, rather,
apart. A voice said, in a breathless, choked
way, " Beauty and the Beast," and the stage was
revealed.

It was a real stage too — the dining-tables
pushed close together and covered with pink-
and-white counterpanes. It was a little unsteady
and creaky to walk on, but very imposing to
look at. The scene was simple, but convincing.
A big sheet of cardboard, bent square, with slits
cut in it and a candle behind, represented, quite
transparently, the domestic hearth ; a round
hat-tin of Eliza's, supported on a stool with a
night-light under it, could not have been mis-
taken, save by wilful malice, for anything but

12

178 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

a copper. A waste-paper basket with two or
three school dusters and an overcoat in it, and
a pair of blue pyjamas over the back of a chair,
put the finishing touch to the scene. It did not
need the announcement from the wings, " The
laundry at Beauty's home." It was so plainly
a laundry and nothing else.

In the wings : " They look just like a real
audience, don't they ? " whispered Mabel. " Go
on, Jimmy, — don't forget the Merchant has to be
pompous and use long words."

Jimmy, enlarged by pillows under Gerald's
best overcoat, which had been intentionally
bought with a view to his probable growth
during the two years which it was intended to
last him, a Turkish towel turban on his head
and an open umbrella over it, opened the first
act in a simple and swift soliloquy :

" I am the most unlucky merchant that ever
was. I was once the richest merchant in
Bagdad, but I lost all my ships, and now I live
in a poor house that is all to bits ; you can see
how the rain comes through the roof, and my
daughters take in washing. And "

The pause might have seemed long, but
Gerald rustled in, elegant in Mademoiselle's pink
dressing-gown and the character of the eldest
daughter.

" A nice drying day," he minced. " Pa dear,
put the umbrella the other way up. It'll save
us going out in the rain to fetch water. Come
on, sisters, dear father's got us a new wash-tub.
Here's luxury ! "

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 179

Round the umbrella, now held the wrong way
up, the three sisters knelt and washed imagi-
nary linen. Kathleen wore a violet skirt of
Eliza's, a blue blouse of her own, and a cap of
knotted handkerchiefs. A white nightdress girt
with a white apron and two red carnations in
Mabel's black hair left no doubt as to which of
the three was Beauty.

The scene went very well. The final dance
with waving towels was all that there is of
charming, Mademoiselle said ; and Eliza was
so much amused that, as she said, she got quite
a nasty stitch along of laughing so hearty.

You know pretty well what Beauty and the
Beast would be like acted by four children who
had spent the afternoon in arranging their
costumes and so had left no time for rehearsing
what they had to say. Yet it delighted them,
and it charmed their audience. And what more
can any play do, even Shakespeare's ? Mabel, in
her Princess clothes, was a resplendent Beauty ;
and Gerald a Beast who wore the drawing-room
hearthrugs with an air of indescribable distinc-
tion. If Jimmy was not a talkative merchant,
he made it up with a stoutness practically
unlimited, and Kathleen surprised and delighted
even herself by the quickness with which she
changed from one to the other of the minor
characters — fairies, servants, and messengers.
It was at the end of the second act that Mabel,
whose costume, having reached the height of
elegance, could not be bettered and therefore
did not need to be changed, said to Gerald,

180 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

sweltering under the weighty magnificence of
his beast-skin : —

" I say, you might let us have the ring
back."

" I'm going to," said Gerald, who had quite
forgotten it. " I'll give it you in the next
scene. Only don't lose it, or go putting it on.
You might go out all together and never be
seen again, or you might get seven times as
visible as any one else, so that all the rest of us
would look like shadows beside you, you'd be so
thick, or "

"Ready!" said Kathleen, bustling in, once
more a wicked sister.

Gerald managed to get his hand into his
pocket under his hearthrug, and when he rolled
his eyes in agonies of sentiment, and said,
" Farewell, dear Beauty ! Return quickly, for
if you remain long absent from your faithful
beast he will assuredly perish," he pressed a ring
into her hand and added : " This is a magic ring
that will give you anything you wish. When
you desire to return to your own disinterested
beast, put on the ring and utter your wish.
Instantly you will be by my side."

Beauty-Mabel took the ring, and it was the
ring.

The curtains closed to warm applause from
two pairs of hands.

The next scene went splendidly. The sisters
were almost too natural in their disagreeable-
ness, and Beauty's annoyance when they splashed
her Princess's dress with real soap and water

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 181

was considered a miracle of good acting. Even
the merchant rose to something more than mere
pillows, and the curtain fell on his pathetic
assurance that in the absence of his dear Beauty
he was wasting away to a shadow. And again
two pairs of hands applauded.

"Here, Mabel, catch hold," Gerald appealed
from under the weight of a towel-horse, the tea-
urn, the tea-tray, and the green baize apron of
the boot boy, which together with four red
geraniums from the landing, the pampas-grass
from the drawing-room fireplace, and the india-
rubber plants from the drawing-room window
were to represent the fountains and garden of
the last act. The applause had died away.

" I wish," said Mabel, taking on herself the
weight of the tea-urn, " I wish those creatures
we made were alive. We should get something
like applause then."

" I'm jolly glad they aren't," said Gerald,
arranging the baize and the towel-horse.
" Brutes ! It makes me feel quite silly when I
catch their paper eyes."

The curtains were drawn back. There lay the
hearth-rug-coated beast, in flat abandonment
among the tropic beauties of the garden, the
pampas-grass shrubbery, the indiarubber plant
bushes, the geranium-trees and the urn foun-
tain. Beauty was ready to make her great
entry in all the thrilling splendour of despair.
And then suddenly it all happened.

Mademoiselle began it : she applauded the
garden scene — with hurried little clappings of

182 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

her quick French hands. Eliza's fat red palms
followed heavily, and then— some one else
was clapping, six or seven people, and their
clapping made a dull padded sound. Nine faces
instead of two were turned towards the stage,
and seven out of the nine were painted, pointed
paper faces. And every hand and every face
was alive. The applause grew louder as Mabel
glided forward, and as she paused and looked
at the audience her unstudied pose of horror
and amazement drew forth applause louder
still ; but it was not loud enough to drown the
shrieks of Mademoiselle and Eliza as they
rushed from the room, knocking chairs over and
crushing each other in the doorway. Two
distant doors banged, Mademoiselle's door
and Eliza's door.

" Curtain ! curtain ! quick ! " cried Beauty-
Mabel, in a voice that wasn't Mabel's or the
Beauty's. " Jerry — those things have come
alive. Oh, whatever shall we do ? "

Gerald in his hearthrugs leaped to his feet.
Again that flat padded applause marked the
swish of cloths on clothes-line as Jimmy and
Kathleen drew the curtains.

" What's up ? " they asked as they drew.

" You've done it this time ! " said Gerald to
the pink, perspiring Mabel. " Oh, bother these
strings ! "

" Can't you burst them ? Fre done it ? "
retorted Mabel. " I like that ! "

' ; More than I do," said Gerald.

" Oh, it's all right,*' said Mabel, " Come on.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 183

" We must go and pull the things to pieces —
then they cant go on being alive."

"It's your fault, anyhow," said Gerald with
every possible absence of gallantry. " Don't
you see ? It's turned into a wishing ring. I
knew something different was going to happen.
Get my knife out of my pocket — this string's
in a knot. Jimmy, Cathy, those Ugly-Wuglies
have come alive — because Mabel wished it.
Cut out and pull them to pieces."

Jimmy and Cathy peeped through the curtain
and recoiled with white faces and staring eyes.
"Not me!" was the brief rejoinder of Jimmy.
Cathy said, "Not much!" And she meant it,
any one could see that.

And now, as Gerald, almost free of the hearth-
rugs, broke his thumb-nail on the stiffest blade
of his knife, a thick rustling and a sharp, heavy
stumping sounded beyond the curtain.

" They're going out ! " screamed Kathleen —
" ivalking out — on their umbrella and broom-
stick legs. You can't stop them, Jerry, they're
too awful ! "

" Everybody in the town'll be insane by
to-morrow night if we don't stop them," cried
Gerald. " Here, give me the ring — I'll unwish
them."

He caught the ring from the unresisting
Mabel, cried, " I wish the Uglies tverent alive,"
and tore through the door. He saw, in fancy,
Mabel's wish undone, and the empty hall
strewed with limp bolsters, hats, umbrellas,
coats and gloves, prone abject properties from

A LIMP HAND WAS LAID ON HIS AKM.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 185

which the brief life had gone out for ever.
But the hall was crowded with live things,
strange things — all horribly short as broom-
sticks and umbrellas are short. A limp
hand gesticulated. A pointed white face with
red cheeks looked up at him, and wide red
lips said something, he could not tell what.
The voice reminded him of the old beggar down
by the bridge who had no roof to his mouth.
These creatures had no roofs to their mouths,
of course — they had no

" Aa oo re o me me oo a oo ho el ? " said the
voice again. And it had said it four times
before Gerald could collect himself sufficiently
to understand that this horror — alive, and most
likely quite uncontrollable — was saying, with a
dreadful calm, polite persistence : —

" Can you recommend me to a good hotel ? "

CHAPTER VII

" Can you recommend me to a good hotel ? "
The speaker had no inside to his head. Gerald
had the best of reasons for knowing it. The
speaker's coat had no shoulders inside it — only
the cross-bar that a jacket is slung on by careful
ladies. The hand raised in interrogation was
not a hand at all ; it was a glove lumpily
stuffed with pocket-handkerchiefs ; and the
arm attached to it was only Kathleen's school
umbrella. Yet the whole thing was alive, and
was asking a definite, and for anybody else,
anybody who really was a body, a reasonable
question.

With a sensation of inward sinking, Gerald
realised that now or never was the time for him
to rise to the occasion. And at the thought he
inwardly sank more deeply than before. It
seemed impossible to rise in the very smallest
degree.

" I beg your pardon " was absolutely the best
he could do ; and the painted, pointed paper
face turned to him once more, and once more
said : —

" Aa oo re o me me oo a oo ho el ? "

186

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 187

" You want a hotel ? " Gerald repeated stupidly,
" a good hotel ? "

" A oo ho el," reiterated the painted lips.

" I'm awfully sorry," Gerald went on — one
can always be polite, of course, whatever hap-
pens, and politeness came natural to him —
" but all our hotels shut so early — about eight,
I think."

"Och em er," said the Ugly-Wugly. Gerald
even now does not understand how that prac-
tical joke— hastily wrought of hat, overcoat,
paper face and limp hands — could have managed,
by just being alive, to become perfectly respect-
able, apparently about fifty years old, and
obviously well off, known and respected in his
own suburb — the kind of man who travels first
class and smokes expensive cigars. Gerald
knew this time, without need of repetition, that
the Ugly-Wugly had said : —

" Knock 'em up."

" You can't," Gerald explained ; " they're all
stone deaf — every single person who keeps a
hotel in this town. It's — " he wildly plunged —
" it's a County Council law. Only deaf people
allowed to keep hotels. It's because of the hops
in the beer," he found himself adding ; " you
know, hops are so good for earache."

"I o wy olio oo," said the respectable Ugly-
Wugly ; and Gerald was not surprised to find
that the thing did "not quite follow him."

" It is a little difficult at first," he said. The
other Ugly-Wuglies were crowding round. The
lady in the poke bonnet said— Gerald found he

188 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

was getting quite clever at understanding the
conversation of those who had no roofs to
their mouths : —

" If not a hotel, a lodging."

" My lodging is on the cold ground," sang
itself unbidden and unavailing in Gerald's ear.
Yet stay — was it unavailing ?

"I do know a lodging," he said slowly,

"but " The tallest of the Ugly-Wuglies

pushed forward. He was dressed in the old
brown overcoat and top-hat which always hung
on the school hat-stand to discourage possible
burglars by deluding them into the idea that
there was a gentleman-of-the-house, and that he
was at home. He had an air at once more
sporting and less reserved than that of the first
speaker, and any one could see that he was not
quite a gentleman.

" Wa I wo oo oh," he began, but the lady
Ugly-Wugly in the flower-wreathed hat inter-
rupted him. She spoke more distinctly than
the others, owing, as Gerald found afterwards,
to the fact that her mouth had been drawn
open, and the flap cut from the aperture had
been folded back — so that she really had some-
thing like a roof to her mouth, though it was
only a paper one.

" What / want to know," Gerald understood
her to say, " is where are the carriages we
ordered ? "

" I don't know," said Gerald, " but I'll find
out. But we ought to be moving," he added ;
<' you see, the performance is over, and they

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 189

want to shut up the house and put the lights
out. Let's be moving."

" Eh — ech e oo-ig," repeated the respectable
Ugly- W ugly, and stepped towards the front
door.

" Oo urn oo," said the flower- wreathed one ;
and Gerald assures me that her vermilion lips
stretched in a smile.

" I shall be delighted," said Gerald with
earnest courtesy, " to do anything, of course.
Things do happen so awkwardly when you least
expect it. I could go with you, and get you
a lodging, if you'd only wait a few moments
in the — in the yard. It's quite a superior sort
of yard," he went on, as a wave of surprised
disdain passed over their white paper faces—
" not a common yard, you know ; the pump,"
he added madly, " has just been painted green
all over, and the dustbin is enamelled iron."

The Ugly-Wuglies turned to each other in
consultation, and Gerald gathered that the
greenness of the pump and the enamelled
character of the dust-bin made, in their opinion,
all the difference.

" I'm awfully sorry," he urged eagerly, " to
have to ask you to wait, but you see I've got
an uncle who's quite mad, and I have to give
him his gruel at half-past nine. He won't feed
out of any hand but mine." Gerald did
not mind what he said. The only people one
is allowed to tell lies to are the Ugly-Wuglies ;
they are all clothes and have no insides, because
they are not human beings, but only a sort of

190 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

very real visions, and therefore cannot be really
deceived, though they may seem to be.

Through the back door that has the blue,
yellow, red and green glass in it, down the iron
steps into the yard, Gerald led the way, and
the Ugly-Wuglies trooped after him. Some
of them had boots, but the ones whose feet
were only broomsticks or umbrellas found the
open-work iron stairs very awkward.

"If you wouldn't mind" said Gerald, "just
waiting tinder the balcony ? My uncle is so very
mad. If he were to see — see any strangers —
I mean, even aristocratic ones — I couldn't answer
for the consequences."

" Perhaps," said the flower-hatted lady ner-
vously, " it would be better for us to try and
find a lodging ourselves ? "

" I wouldn't advise you to," said Gerald as
grimly as he knew how ; " the police here arrest
all strangers. It's the new law the Liberals
have just made," he added convincingly, "and
you'd get the sort of lodging you wouldn't care
for — I couldn't bear to think of you in a prison
dungeon," he added tenderly.

" I ah wi oo er papers," said the respectable
Ugly-Wugly, and added something that sounded
like " disgraceful state of things."

However, they ranged themselves under the
iron balcony. Gerald gave one last look at
them and wondered, in his secret heart, why
he was not frightened, though in his outside
mind he was congratulating himself on his
bravery. For the things did look rather horrid.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 191

In that light it was hard to believe that
they were really only clothes and pillows
and sticks — with no insides. As he went up
the steps he heard them talking among them-
selves — in that strange language of theirs, all
oo's and ah's ; and he thought he distinguished
the voice of the respectable Ugly-Wugly saying,
"Most gentlemanly lad," and the wreathed-
hatted lady answering warmly : " Yes, indeed."

The coloured-glass door closed behind him.
Behind him was the yard, peopled by seven
impossible creatures. Before him lay the silent
house, peopled, as lie knew very well, by five
human beings as frightened as human beings
could be. You think, perhaps, that Ugly-
Wuglies are nothing to be frightened of.
That's only because you have never seen one
come alive. You just make one — any old suit
of your father's, and a hat that he isn't wearing,
a bolster or two, a painted paper face, a few
sticks and a pair of boots will do the trick ; get
your father to lend you a wishing ring, give it
back to him when it has done its work, and see
how you feel then.

Of course the reason why Gerald was not
afraid was that he had the ring ; and, as you
have seen, the wearer of that is not frightened
by anything unless he touches that thing. But
Gerald knew well enough how the others must
be feeling. That was why he stopped for a
moment in the hall to try and imagine what
would have been most soothing to him if he
had been as terrified as he knew they were.

192 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" Cathy ! I say ! What ho, Jimmy ! Mabel
ahoy ! " he cried in a loud, cheerful voice that
sounded very unreal to himself.

The dining-room door opened a cautious
inch.

" I say — such larks ! " Gerald went on, shoving
gently at the door with his shoulder. " Look
out ! what are you keeping the door shut for?"

" Are you — alone ? " asked Kathleen in
hushed, breathless tones.

" Yes, of course. Don't be a duffer ! "

The door opened, revealing three scared faces
and the disarranged chairs where that odd
audience had sat.

" Where are they ? Have you unwished
them ? We heard them talking. Horrible ! "

" They're in the yard," said Gerald with the
best imitation of joyous excitement that he
could manage. " It is such fun ! " They're just
like real people, quite kind and jolly. It's
the most ripping lark. Don't let on to
Mademoiselle and Eliza. I'll square them.
Then Kathleen and Jimmy must go to bed,
and I'll see Mabel home, and as soon as we
get outside I must find some sort of lodging
for the Ugly-Wuglies — they are such fun
though. I do wish you could all go with me."

" Fun ? " echoed Kathleen dismally and
doubting.

" Perfectly killing," Gerald asserted resolutely.
" Now, you just listen to what I say to
Mademoiselle and Eliza, and back me up for
all you're worth,"

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 193

" But," said Mabel, " you can't mean that
you're going to leave me alone directly we get
out, and go off with those horrible creatures.
They look like fiends.''

" You wait till you've seen them close," Gerald
advised. ' ; Why, they're just ordinary — the first
thing one of them did was to ask me to
recommend it to a good hotel ! I couldn't
understand it at first, because it has no roof to
its mouth, of course."

It was a mistake to say that, Gerald knew it
at once.

Mabel and Kathleen were holding hands in
a way that plainly showed how a few moments
ago they had been clinging to each other in an
agony of terror. Now they clung again. And
Jimmy, who was sitting on the edge of what
had been the stage, kicking his boots against
the pink counterpane, shuddered visibly.

■' It doesn't matter" Gerald explained — " about
the roofs, I mean ; you soon get to under-
stand. I heard them say I was a gentlemanly
lad as I was coming away. They wouldn't have
cared to notice a little thing like that if they'd
been fiends, you know."

" It doesn't matter how gentlemanly they
think you ; if you don't see me home you
arent, that's all. Are you going to ? " Mabel
demanded.

" Of course I am. We shall have no end of
a lark. Now for Mademoiselle."

He had put on his coat as he spoke and now
ran up the stairs. The others, herding in the

13

194 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

hall, could hear his light-hearted there's-nothing-
imusual-the - matter- whatever-did - you-bolt - like-
that-for knock at Mademoiselle's door, the
reassuring "It's only me — Gerald, you know,''
the pause, the opening of the door, and the low-
voiced parley that followed ; then Mademoiselle
and Gerald at Eliza's door, voices of reassurance ;
Eliza's terror, bluntly voluble, tactfully soothed.

" Wonder what lies he's telling them," Jimmy
grumbled.

" Oh ! not lies," said Mabel ; " he's only telling
them as much of the truth as it's good for them
to know."

" If you'd been a man," said Jimmy wither-
ingly, " you'd have been a beastly Jesuit, and hid
up chimneys."

" If I were only just a boy," Mabel retorted,
" I shouldn't be scared out of my life by a pack
of old coats."

" I'm so sorry you were frightened," Gerald's
honeyed tones floated down the staircase ; " we
didn't think about you being frightened. And it
ivas a good trick, wasn't it ? "

" There ! " whispered Jimmy, "he's been telling
her it was a trick of ours."

"Well, so it was," said Mabel stoutly.

" It was indeed a wonderful trick," said
Mademoiselle ; " and how did you move the
mannikins ? "

" Oh, we've often done it — with strings, you
know," Gerald explained.

" That's true, too," Kathleen whispered.

"Let us see you do once again this trick so

"WONDER WHAT LIES HR'S TELLING THEM,'
JIMMY GRUMBLED.

196 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

remarkable," said Mademoiselle, arriving at the
bottom-stair mat.

" Oh, I've cleared them all out," said Gerald.
(" So he has," from Kathleen aside to Jimmy.)
" We were so sorry you were startled ;
we thought you wouldn't like to see them
again."

" Then," said Mademoiselle brightly, as she
peeped into the untidy dining-room and saw
that the figures had indeed vanished, " if we
supped and discoursed of your beautiful piece
of theatre ? "

Gerald explained fully how much his brother
and sister would enjoy this. As for him —
Mademoiselle would see that it was his duty
to escort Mabel home, and kind as it was of
Mademoiselle to ask her to stay the night, it
could not be, on account of the frenzied and
anxious affection of Mabel's aunt. And it was
useless to suggest that Eliza should see Mabel
home, because Eliza was nervous at night unless
accompanied by her gentleman friend.

So Mabel was hatted with her own hat and
cloaked with a cloak that was not hers ; and
she and Gerald went out by the front door,
amid kind last words and appointments for the
morrow.

The moment that front door was shut Gerald
caught Mabel by the arm and led her briskly to
the corner of the side street which led to the
yard. Just round the corner he stopped.

" Now," he said, " what I want to know is— -
are you an idiot or aren't you?"

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 197

" Idiot yourself!" said Mabel, but mechanically,
for she saw that he was in earnest.

" Because Fm not frightened of the Ugly-
Wuglies. They're as harmless as tame rabbits.
But an idiot might be frightened, and give the
whole show away. If you're an idiot, say so,
and I'll go back and tell them you're afraid to
walk home, and that I'll go and let your aunt
know you're stopping."

" I'm not an idiot," said Mabel ; " and," she
added, glaring round her with the wild gaze
of the truly terror-stricken, " I'm not afraid of
anything"

"I'm going to let you share my difficulties and
dangers," said Gerald ; "at least, I'm inclined to
let you. I wouldn't do as much for my own
brother, I can tell you. And if you queer my
pitch I'll never speak to you again or let the
others either."

" You're a beast, that's what you are ! I don't
need to be threatened to make me brave. I cm."

"Mabel," said Gerald, in low, thrilling tones,
for he saw that the time had come to sound
another note, "I know you're brave. I believe
in you. That's why I've arranged it like this.
I'm certain you've got the heart of a lion under
that black-and-white exterior. Can I trust you?
To the death?"

Mabel felt that to say anything but " Yes "
was to throw away a priceless reputation for
courage. So " Yes " was what she said.

" Then wait here. You're close to the lamp.
And when you see me coming with theni re-

198 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

member they're as harmless as serpents — I mean
doves. Talk to them just like you would to any
one else. See ? "

He turned to leave her, but stopped at her
natural question :

" What hotel did you say you were going to
take them to ? "

" Oh, Jimminy ! " the harassed Gerald caught
at his hair with both hands. " There ! you see,
Mabel, you're a help already " ; he had, even at
that moment, some tact left. " I clean forgot !
I meant to ask you — isn't there any lodge or
anything in the Castle grounds where I could
put them for the night? The charm will break,
you know, some time, like being invisible did,
and they'll just be a pack of coats and things
that we can easily carry home any day. Is there
a lodge or anything ? "

" There's a secret passage," Mabel began — but
at that moment the yard-door opened and an
Ugly-Wugly put out its head and looked
anxiously down the street.

" Risfhto ! " — Gerald ran to meet it. It was all
Mabel could do not to run in an opposite direc-
tion with an opposite motive. It was all she
could do, but she did it, and was proud of
herself as long as ever she remembered that
night.

And now, with all the silent precaution
necessitated by the near presence of an ex-
tremely insane uncle, the Ugly-Wuglies, a grisly
band, trooped out of the yard door.

" Walk on your toes, dear," the bonneted Ugly-

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 199

Wugly whispered to the one with a wreath ; and
even at that thrilling crisis Gerald wondered
how she could, since the toes of one foot were
but the end of a golf club and of the other the
end of a hockey-stick.

Mabel felt that there was no shame in retreat-
ing to the lamp-post at the street corner, but,
once there, she made herself halt — and no one
but Mabel will ever know how much making
that took. Think of it — to stand there, firm and
quiet, and wait for those hollow, unbelievable
things to come up to her, clattering on the pave-
ment with their stumpy feet or borne along noise-
lessly, as in the case of the flower-hatted lady,
by a skirt that touched the ground, and had,
Mabel knew very well, nothing at all inside it.

She stood very still ; the insides of her hands
grew cold and damp, but still she stood, saying
over and over again : " They're not true — they
can't be true. It's only a dream — they aren't
really true. They can't be." And then Gerald
was there, and all the Ugly-Wuglies crowding
round, and Gerald saying : —

"This is one of our friends, Mabel — the Princess
in the play, you know. Be a man ! " he added in
a whisper for her ear alone.

Mabel, all her nerves stretched tight as banjo
strings, had an awful instant of not knowing
whether she would be able to be a man or
whether she would be merely a shrieking and
running little mad girl. For the respectable
Ugly- Wugly shook her limply by the hand (" He
cant be true," she told herself), and the rose-

200 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

wreathed one took her arm with a soft-padded
glove at the end of an umbrella arm, and said: —

" You dear, clever little thing ! Do walk with
me ! " in a gashing, girlish way, and in speech
almost wholly lacking in consonants.

Then they all walked up the High Street as if,
as Gerald said, they were anybody else.

It was a strange procession, but Liddlesby goes
early to bed, and the Liddlesby police, in common
with those of most other places, wear boots that
one can hear a mile off. If such boots had been
heard, Gerald would have had time to turn back
and head them off. He felt now that he could
not resist a flush of pride in Mabel's courage
as he heard her polite rejoinders to the still
more polite remarks of the amiable Ugly-
Wuglies. He did not know how near she was to
the scream that would throw away the whole
thing and bring the police and the residents out
to the ruin of everybody.

They met no one, except one man, who
murmured, "Guy Fawkes, swelp me!" and
crossed the road hurriedly; and when, next day,
he told what he had seen, his wife disbelieved
him, and also said it was a judgment on him,
which was unreasonable.

Mabel felt as though she w r ere taking part in
a very completely arranged nightmare, but
Gerald was in it too, Gerald, who had asked
if she was an idiot. Well, she wasn't. But she
soon would be, she felt. Yet she went on
answering the courteous vowel-talk of these
impossible people. She had often heard her

202 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

aunt speak of impossible people. Well, now she
knew what they were like.

Summer twilight had melted into summer
moonlight. The shadows of the Ugly-Wuglies
on the white road were much more horrible
than their more solid selves. Mabel wished it
had been a dark night, and then corrected the
wish with a hasty shudder.

Gerald, submitting to a searching interro-
gatory from the tall-hatted Ugly-Wugly as
to his schools, his sports, pastimes, and ambi-
tions, wondered how long the spell would last.
The ring seemed to work in sevens. Would
these things have seven hours' life — or fourteen
— or twenty-one? His mind lost itself in the
intricacies of the seven-times table (a teaser at
the best of times) and only found itself with
a shock when the procession found itself at the
gates of the Castle grounds.

Locked — of course.

" You see," he explained, as the Ugly-Wuglies
vainly shook the iron gates with incredible
hands ; " it's so very late. There is another
way. But you have to climb through a hole."

" The ladies," the respectable Ugly-Wugly
began objecting ; but the ladies with one voice
affirmed that they loved adventures. " So
frightfully thrilling," added the one who wore
roses.

So they went round by the road, and coming
to the hole — it was a little difficult to find in the
moonlight, which always disguises the most
familiar things — Gerald went first with the

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 203

bicycle lantern which he had snatched as his
pilgrims came out of the yard ; the shrinking
Mabel followed, and then the Ugly-Wuglies,
with hollow rattlings of their wooden limbs
against the stone, crept through, and with
strange vowel-sounds of general amazement,
manly courage, and feminine nervousness,
followed the light along the passage through
the fern-hung cutting and under the arch.

When they emerged on the moonlit enchant-
ment of the Italian garden a quite intelligible
" Oh! " of surprised admiration broke from more
than one painted paper lip ; and the respect-
able Ugly-Wugly was understood to say that
it must be quite a show-place — by George,
sir ! yes.

Those marble terraces and artfully serpen-
tining gravel walks surely never had echoed
to steps so strange. No shadows so wildly
unbelievable had, for all its enchantments, ever
fallen on those smooth, gray, dewy lawns.
Gerald was thinking this, or something like
it (what he really thought was, " I bet there
never was such a go as this, even here ! "), when
he saw the statue of Hermes leap from its
pedestal and run towards him and his company
with all the lively curiosity of a street boy
eager to be in at a street light. He saw, too,
that he was the only one who perceived that
white advancing presence. And he knew that
it was the ring that let him see what by others
could not be seen. He slipped it from his finger.
Yes ; Hermes was on his pedestal, still as the

204 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

snow man you make in the Christmas holidays.
He put the ring on again, and there was
Hermes, circling round the group and gazing
deep in each unconscious Ugly-Wugly face.

"This seems a very superior hotel," the tall-
hatted Ugly-Wugly was saying ; " the grounds
are laid out with what you might call taste."

" We should have to go in by the back door,"
said Mabel suddenly. " The front door's locked
at half -past nine."

A short, stout Ugly-Wugly in a yellow and
blue cricket caj), who had hardly spoken,
muttered something about an escapade, and
about feeling quite young again.

And now they had skirted the marble-edged
pool where the gold fish swam and glimmered,
and where the great prehistoric beast had come
down to bathe and drink. The water flashed
white diamonds in the moonlight, and Gerald
alone of them all saw that the scaly-plated vast
lizard was even now rolling and wallowing there
among the lily pads.

They hastened up the steps of the Temple of
Flora. The back of it, where no elegant arch
opened to the air, was against one of those
sheer hills, almost cliffs, that diversified the
landscape of that garden. Mabel passed behind
the statue of the goddess, fumbled a little, and
then Gerald's lantern, hashing like a search-
light, showed a very high and very narrow
doorway : the stone that was the door, and that
had closed it, revolved slowly under the touch of
Mabel's fingers.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 205

" This way," she said, and panted a little. The
back of her neck felt cold and goose-fleshy.

"You lead the way, my lad, with the lantern,''
said the suburban Ugly-Wugly in his bluff,
agreeable way.

" I — I must stay behind to close the door," said
Gerald.

"The Princess can do that. Well help her,"
said the wreathed one with effusion ; and Gerald
thought her horribly officious.

He insisted gently that he would be the one
responsible for the safe shutting of that door.

" You wouldn't like me to get into trouble, I'm
sure," he urged ; and the Ugly-Wuglies, for the
last time kind and reasonable, agreed that this,
of all things, they would most deplore.

" You take it," Gerald urged, pressing the
bicycle lamp on the elderly Ugly-Wugly ;
" you're the natural leader. Go straight ahead.
Are there any steps ? " he asked Mabel in a
whisper.

" Not for ever so long," she whispered back.
" It goes on for ages, and then twists round."

" Whispering," said the smallest Ugly-Wugly
suddenly, " ain't manners."

" He hasn't any, anyhow," whispered the lady
Ugly-Wugly ; " don't mind him — quite a self-
made man," and squeezed Mabel's arm with
horrible confidential flabbiness.

The respectable Ugly-Wugly leading with the
lamp, the others following trustfully, one and all
disappeared into that narrow doorway ; and
Gerald and Mabel standing without, hardly

200 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

daring to breathe lest a breath should retard
the procession, almost sobbed with relief. Pre-
maturely, as it turned out. For suddenly there
was a rush and a scuffle inside the passage, and
as they strove to close the door the Ugly-
Wuglies fiercely pressed to open it again.
Whether they saw something in the dark
passage that alarmed them, whether they took
it into their empty heads that this could not be
the back way to any really respectable hotel, or
whether a convincing sudden instinct warned
them that they were being tricked, Mabel and
Gerald never knew. But they knew that the
Ugly - Wuglies were no longer friendly and
commonplace, that a fierce change had come
over them. Cries of "No, Xo ! " " We won't go
on!" "Make him lead !" broke the dreamy stillness
of the perfect night. There were screams from
ladies' voices, the hoarse, determined shouts of
strong Ugly- Wuglies roused to resistance, and,
worse than all, the steady pushing open of that
narrow stone door that had almost closed upon
the ghastly crew. Through the chink of it they
could be seen, a writhing black crowd against
the light of the bicycle lamp ; a padded hand
reached round the door ; stick-boned arms
stretched out angrily towards the world that
that door, if it closed, would shut them off from
for ever. And the tone of their consonantless
speech was no longer conciliatory and ordinary :
it was threatening, full of the menace of unbear-
able horrors.

The padded hand fell on Gerald's arm. and

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 207

instantly all the terrors that he had, so far,
only known in imagination hecanie real to him,
and he saw, in the sort of flash that shows drown-
ing people their past lives, what it was that he
had asked of Mabel, and that she had given.

"Push, push for your life!" he cried, and
setting his heel against the pedestal of Flora,
pushed manfully.

" I can't any more — oh, I can't ! " moaned
Mabel, and tried to use her heel likewise, but
her legs were too short.

" They mustn't get out, they mustn't ! " Gerald
panted.

" You'll know it when we do," came from
inside the door in tones which fury and mouth-
rooflessness would have made unintelligible to
any ears but those sharpened by the wild fear
of that unspeakable moment.

" What's up, there ? " cried suddenly a new
voice — a voice with all its consonants comfort-
ing, clean-cut, and ringing, and abruptly a
new shadow fell on the marble floor of Flora's
temple.

" Come and help push ! " Gerald's voice only
just reached the newcomer. "If they get out
they'll kill us all."

A strong, velveteen-covered shoulder pushed
suddenly between the shoulders of Gerald and
Mabel; a stout man's heel sought the aid of the
goddess's pedestal ; the heavy, narrow door
yielded slowly, it closed, its spring clicked, and
the furious, surging, threatening mass of Ugly-
Wuglies was shut in, and Gerald and Mabel —

208 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

oh, incredible relief ! — were shut out. Mabel
threw herself on the marble floor, sobbing slow,
heavy sobs of achievement and exhaustion. If
I had been there I should have looked the other
way, so as not to see whether Gerald yielded
himself to the same abandonment.

The newcomer — he appeared to be a game-
keeper, Gerald decided later — looked down on —
well, certainly on Mabel, and said :

" Come on, don't be a little duffer." (He may
have said, " a couple of little duffers.") " Who
is it, and what's it all about ? "

" I can't possibly tell you," Gerald panted.

" We shall have to see about that, shan't we,"
said the newcomer amiably. " Come out into
the moonlight and let's review the situation."

Gerald, even in that topsy-turvy state of his
world, found time to think that a gamekeeper
who used such words as that had most likely
a romantic past. But at the same time he saw
that such a man would be far less easy to
" square " with an unconvincing tale than Eliza,
or Johnson, or even Mademoiselle. In fact, he
seemed, with the onty tale that they had to tell,
practically unsquarable.

Gerald got up — if he was not up already, or
still up — and pulled at the limp and now hot
hand of the sobbing Mabel ; and as he did so the
unsquarable one took his hand, and thus led
both children out from under the shadow of
Flora's dome into the bright white moonlight
that carpeted Flora's steps. Here he sat down,
a child on each side of him, drew a hand of each

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 209

through his velveteen arm, pressed them to his
velveteen sides in a friendly, reassuring way,
and said : " Now then ! Go ahead ! "

Mabel merely sobbed. We must excuse her.
She had been very brave, and I have no doubt
that all heroines, from Joan of Are to Grace
Darling, have had their sobbing moments.

But Gerald said : "It's no use. If I made up
a story you'd see through it."

" That's a compliment to my discernment,
anyhow," said the stranger. " What price
telling me the truth ? "

" If we told you the truth," said Gerald, " you
wouldn't believe it."

" Try me," said the velveteen one. He was
clean-shaven, and had large eyes that sparkled
when the moonlight touched them.

" I cant" said Gerald, and it was plain that he
spoke the truth. "You'd either think we were
mad, and get us shut up, or else — oh, it's no
good. Thank you for helping us, and do let us
go home."

" I wonder," said the stranger musingly,
"whether you have any imagination."

" Considering that we invented them," Gerald
hotly began, and stopped with late prudence.

"If by ' them ' you mean the people whom
I helped you to imprison in yonder tomb," said
the stranger, loosing Mabel's hand to put his
arm round her, " remember that I saw and
heard them. And with all respect to your
imagination, I doubt whether any invention of
yours would be quite so convincing."

14

210 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

Gerald put his elbows on his knees and his
chin in his hands.

" Collect yourself," said the one in velveteen ;
" and while you are collecting, let me just put
the thing from my point of view. I think you
hardly realise my position. I come down from
London to take care of a big estate."

" I thought you were a gamekeeper," put in
Gerald.

Mabel put her head on the stranger's shoulder.
" Hero in disguise, then, / know," she sniffed.

" Not at all," said he ; " bailiff would be nearer
the mark. On the very first evening I go out
to take the moonlit air, and approaching a
white building, hear sounds of an agitated
scuffle, accompanied by frenzied appeals for
assistance. Carried away by the enthusiasm of
the moment, I do assist and shut up goodness
knows who behind a stone door. Now, is it
unreasonable that I should ask who it is that
I've shut up — helped to shut up, I mean, and
who it is that I've assisted ? "

" It's reasonable enough," Gerald admitted.

" Well then," said the stranger.

"Well then," said Gerald, " the fact is No,"

he added after a pause, " the fact is, I simply
can't tell you."

" Then I must ask the other side," said Vel-
veteens. "Let me go — I'll undo that door and
find out for myself."

" Tell him," said Mabel, speaking for the first
time. " Never mind if he believes or not. We
can't have them let out."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 211

"Very well," said Gerald, "I'll tell him. Now
look here, Mr. Bailiff, will you promise us on
an English gentleman's word of honour — be-
cause, of course, I can see you're that, bailiff or
not — will you promise that you won't tell any
one what we tell you and that you won't have
us put in a lunatic asylum, however mad we

" Yes," said the stranger, " I think I can
promise that. But if you've been having a
sham fight or anything and shoved the other
side into that hole, don't you think you'd better
let them out? They'll be most awfully fright-
ened, you know. After all, I suppose they are
only children."

" Wait till you hear," Gerald answered.
"They're not children — not much ! Shall I just
tell about them or begin at the beginning?"

" The beginning, of course," said the stranger.

Mabel lifted her head from his velveteen
shoulder and said, " Let me begin, then. I found
a ring, and I said it would make me invisible.
I said it in play. And it did. I was invisible
twenty-one hours. Never mind where I got the
ring. Now, Gerald, you go on."

Gerald went on ; for quite a long time he
went on, for the story was a splendid one
to tell.

"And so," he ended, " we got them in there;
and when seven hours are over, or fourteen, or
twenty-one, or something with a seven in it,
they'll just be old coats again. They came alive
at half-past nine. / think they'll stop being it

212 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

in seven hours — that's half -past four. Note will
you let us go home ? "

" I'll see you home," said the stranger in a
quite new tone of exasperating gentleness.
" Come — let's be going."

" You don't believe us," said Gerald. " Of
course you don't. Nobody could. But I could
make you believe if I chose."

All three stood up, and the stranger stared in
Gerald's eyes till Gerald answered his thought.

"No, I don't look mad, do I ? "

" No, you aren't. But, come, you're an extra-
ordinarily sensible boy ; don't you think you
may be sickening for a fever or something ? "

" And Cathy and Jimmy and Mademoiselle
and Eliza, and the man who said ' Guy Fawkes,
swelp me ! ' and you, you saw them move —
you heard them call out. Are you sickening for
anything ? "

" No — or at least not for anything but in-
formation. Come, and I'll see you home."

"Mabel lives at the Towers," said Gerald, as
the stranger turned into the broad drive that
leads to the big gate.

" No relation to Lord Yalding," said Mabel
hastily — " housekeeper's niece." She was holding
on to his hand all the way. At the servants'
entrance she put up her face to be kissed, and
went in.

" Poor little thing ! " said the bailiff, as they
went down the drive towards the gate.

He went with Gerald to the door of the
school.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 213

" Look here," said Gerald at parting. ' ; I
know what you're going to do. You're going
to try to undo that door."

" Discerning ! " said the stranger.

" Well — don't. Or, any way, wait till day-
light and let us be there. We can get there
by ten."

"All right— I'll meet you there by ten,"
answered the stranger. " By George ! you're the
rummest kids I ever met."

" We are rum," Gerald owned, " but so would

you be if Good night."

*****

As the four children went over the smooth
lawn towards Flora's Temple they talked, as
they had talked all the morning, about the
adventures of last night and of Mabel's bravery.
It was not ten, but half-past twelve ; for Eliza,
backed by Mademoiselle, had insisted on their
" clearing up," and clearing up very thoroughly,
the " litter " of last night.

" You're a Victoria Cross heroine, dear," said
Cathy warmly. " You ought to have a statue
put up to you."

" It would come alive if you put it here," said
Gerald grimly.

" / shouldn't have been afraid," said Jimmy.

" By daylight," Gerald assured him, " every-
thing looks so jolly different."

" I do hope he'll be there," Mabel said ; " he was
such a dear, Cathy — a perfect bailiff, with the
soul of a gentleman."

" He isn't there, though," said Jimmy. " I

H • ft. « i^k ii_i_ fi. ^
A PAINTED POINTED PAPER FACE PEERED OUT.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 215

believe you just dreamed him, like you did the
statues coming alive."

They went up the marble steps in the sun-
shine, and it was difficult to believe that this
was the place where only in last night's moon-
light fear had laid such cold hands on the hearts
of Mabel and Gerald.

"Shall we open the door," suggested Kathleen,
" and begin to carry home the coats ? "

" Let's listen first," said Gerald ; " perhaps they
aren't only coats yet."

They laid ears to the hinges of the stone door,
behind which last night the Ugly-Wuglies had
shrieked and threatened. All was still as the
sweet morning itself. It was as they turned
away that they saw the man they had come to
meet. He was on the other side of Flora's
pedestal. But he was not standing up. He lay
there, quite still, on his back, his arms flung wide.

" Oh, look ! " cried Cathy, and pointed. His
face was a queer greenish colour, and on his
forehead there was a cut; its edges were blue,
and a little blood had trickled from it on to the
white of the marble.

At the same time Mabel pointed too — but she
did not cry out as Cathy had done. And what
she pointed at was a big glossy-leaved rhododen-
dron bush, from which a painted pointed paper
face peered out — very white, very red, in the
sunlight — and, as the children gazed, shrank
back into the cover of the shining leaves.

CHAPTER VIII

It was but too plain. The unfortunate bailiff
must have opened the door before the spell had
faded, while yet the Ugly-Wuglies were some-
thing more than mere coats and hats and sticks.
They had rushed out upon him, and had done
this. He lay there insensible — was it a golf-club
or a hockey-stick that had made that horrible
cut on his forehead? Gerald wondered. The
girls had rushed to the sufferer; already his
head was in Mabel's lap. Kathleen had tried
to get it on to hers, but Mabel was too quick
for her.

Jimmy and Gerald both knew what was the
first thing needed by the unconscious, even
before Mabel impatiently said : " Water !
water ! "

" What in ? " Jimmy asked, looking doubtfully
at his hands, and then down the green slope
to the marble-bordered pool where the water-
lilies Avere.

" Your hat — anything," said Mabel.

The two boys turned away.

"Suppose they come after us," said Jimmy.

216

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 217

" What come after us ? " Gerald snapped
rather than asked.

"The Ugly-Wuglies," Jimmy whispered.

" Who's afraid ? " Gerald inquired.

But he looked to right and left very carefully,
and chose the way that did not lead near the
bushes. He scooped water up in his straw hat
and returned to Flora's Temple, carrying it
carefully in both hands. When he saw how
quickly it ran through the straw he pulled his
handkerchief from his breast pocket with his
teeth and dropped it into the hat. It was with
this that the girls wiped the blood from the
bailiffs brow.

" We ought to have smelling salts," said Kat h-
leen, half in tears. " I know we ought."

"They would be good," Mabel owned.

" Hasn't your aunt any? "

" Yes, but "

" Don't be a coward," said Gerald ; " think of
last night. They wouldn't hurt you. He must
have insulted them or something. Look here,
you run. We'll see that nothing runs after you."

There was no choice but to relinquish the
head of the interesting invalid to Kathleen ; so
Mabel did it, cast one glaring glance round the
rhododendron bordered slope, and fled towards
the castle.

The other three bent over the still unconscious
bailiff.

"He's not dead, is he?" asked Jimmy
anxiously.

" No," Kathleen reassured him, " his heart's

218 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

beating. Mabel and I felt it in his wrist, where
doctors do. How frightfully good- looking he is !"

"Not so dusty," Gerald admitted.

" I never know what you mean by good-
looking," said Jimmy, and suddenly a shadow
fell on the marble beside them and a fourth
voice spoke — not Mabel's ; her hurrying figure,
though still in sight, was far away.

" Quite a personable young man," it said.

The children looked up — into the face of the
eldest of the Ugly-Wuglies, the respectable one.
Jimmy and Kathleen screamed. I am sorry,
but they did.

" Hush ! " said Gerald savagely : he was still
wearing the ring. " Hold your tongues ! I'll
get him away," he added in a whisper.

" Very sad affair this," said the respectable
Ugly-Wugly. He spoke with a curious accent ;
there was something odd about his r's, and his
m's and n's were those of a person labouring
under an almost intolerable cold in the head.
But it was not the dreadful " oo " and "ah" voice
of the night before. Kathleen and Jimmy
stooped over the bailiff. Even that prostrate
form, being human, seemed some little protec-
tion. But Gerald, strong in the fearlessness
that the ring gave to its wearer, looked full into
the face of the Ugly-Wugly — and started. For
though the face was almost the same as the face
he had himself painted on the school drawing-
paper, it was not the same. For it was no longer
paper. It was a real face, and the hands, lean
and almost transparent as they were, were real

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 219

hands. As it moved a little to get a better
view of the bailiff it was plain that it had
legs, arms — live legs and arms, and a self-
supporting backbone. It was alive indeed —
with a vengeance.

" How did it happen ? " Gerald asked with an
effort at calmness — a successful effort.

" Most regrettable," said the Ugly-Wugly.
" The others must have missed the way last
night in the passage. They never found the
hotel."

" Did you ? " asked Gerald blankly.

" Of course," said the Ugly-Wugly. " Most
respectable, exactly as you said. Then when
I came away — I didn't come the front way
because I wanted to revisit this sylvan scene
by daylight, and the hotel people didn't seem
to know how to direct me to it — I found the
others all at this door, very angry. They'd been
here all night, trying to get out. Then the door
opened — this gentleman must have opened it —
and before I could protect him, that underbred
man in the high hat — you remember "

Gerald remembered.

" Hit him on the head, and he fell where
you see him. The others dispersed, and I
myself was just going for assistance when
I saw you."

Here Jimmy was discovered to be in tears
and Kathleen white as any drawing-paper.

" What's the matter, my little man ? " said the
respectable Ugly-Wugly kindly. Jimmy passed
instantly from tears to yells.

220 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

"Here, take the ring!" said Gerald in a furious
whisper, and thrust it on to Jimmy's hot, damp,
resisting finger. Jimmy's voice stopped short
in the middle of a howl. And Gerald in a cold
flash realised what it was that Mabel had gone
through the night before. But it was daylight,
and Gerald was not a coward.

" We must find the others," he said.

" I imagine," said the elderly Ugly-Wugly,
" that they have gone to bathe. Their clothes
are in the wood."

He pointed stiffly.

" You two go and see," said Gerald. " I'll go
on dabbing this chap's head."

In the wood Jimmy, now fearless as any lion,
discovered four heaps of clothing, with broom-
sticks, hockey-sticks, and masks complete, all
that had gone to make up the gentlemen Ugly-
Wuglies of the night before. On a stone seat
well in the sun sat the two lady Ugly-Wuglies,
and Kathleen approached them gingerly.
Valour is easier in the sunshine than at night,
as we all know. When she and Jimmy came
close to the bench, they saAV that the Ugly-
Wuglies were only Ugly-Wuglies such as they
had often made. There was no life in them.
Jimmy shook them to pieces, and a sigh of
relief burst from Kathleen.

"The spell's broken, you see," she said; "and
that old gentleman, he's real. He only happens
to be like the Ugly-Wugly we made."

" He's got the coat that hung in the hall on,
anyway," said Jimmy.

JIMMY SHOOK THEM TO PIECES.

222 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" No, it's only like it. Let's get back to the
unconscious stranger."

They did, and Gerald begged the elderly
Ugly-Wugly to retire among the bushes with
Jimmy ; " because," said he, " I think the poor
bailiff's coming round, and it might upset him
to see strangers — and Jimmy'll keep you
company. He's the best one of us to go with
you," he added hastily.

And this, since Jimmy had the ring, was
certainly true.

So the two disappeared behind the rhodo-
dendrons. Mabel came back with the salts
just as the bailiff opened his eyes.

"It's just like life," she said; "I might just

as well not have gone. However " She

knelt down at once and held the bottle
under the sufferer's nose till he sneezed and
feebly pushed her hand away with the faint
question :

" What's up now ? "

" You've hurt your head," said Gerald. " Lie
still."

" No — more — smelling-bottle," he said weakly,
and lay.

Quite soon he sat up and looked round him.
There was an anxious silence. Here was a
grown-up who knew last night's secret, and
none of the children were at all sure what the
utmost rigour of the law might be in a case
where people, no matter how young, made
Ugly-Wuglies, and brought them to life —
dangerous, fighting, angry life. What would

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 223

he say — what would he do ? He said : " What
an odd thing! Have I been insensible long?"

" Hours," said Mabel earnestly.

" Not long," said Kathleen.

" We don't know. We found you like it," said
Gerald.

"I'm all right now," said the bailiff, and his
eye fell on the blood-stained handkerchief. " I
say, I did give my head a bang. And you've
been giving me first aid. Thank you most
awfully. But it is rum."

" What's rum ? " politeness obliged Gerald
to ask.

" Well, I suppose it isn't really ram — I expect I
saw you just before I fainted, or whatever it was —
but I've dreamed the most extraordinary dream
while I've been insensible, and you were in it."

"Nothing but us?" asked Mabel breathlessly.

"Oh, lots of things —impossible things — but
you were real enough."

Every one breathed deeply in relief. It was
indeed, as they agreed later, a lucky let-off.

" Are you sure you're all right ? " they all
asked, as he got on his feet.

" Perfectly, thank you." He glanced behind
Flora's statue as he spoke. " Do you know,
I dreamed there was a door there, but of
course there isn't. I don't know how to thank
you," he added, looking at them with what the
girls called his beautiful, kind eyes ; " it's lucky
for me you came along. You come here when-
ever you like, you know," he added. " I give
you the freedom of the place."

224 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

"You're the new bailiff, aren't you?" said
Mabel.

" Yes. How did you know ? " lie asked
quickly ; but they did not tell him how they
knew. Instead, they found out which way he
was going, and went the other way after warm
hand-shakes and hopes on both sides that they
would meet again soon.

" I'll tell you what," said Gerald, as they
watched the tall, broad figure of the bailiff
grow smaller across the hot green of the grass
slope, " have you got any idea of how we're
going to spend the day ? Because I have."

The others hadn't.

"We'll get rid of that Ugly-Wugly — oh, we'll
find a way right enough — and directly we've
done it we'll go home and seal up the ring in
an envelope so that its teeth'll be drawn and
it'll be powerless to have unforeseen larks with
us. Then we'll get out on the roof, and have
a quiet day — books and apples. I'm about
fed up with adventures, so I tell you."

The others told him the same thing.

" Now, think" said he — " think as you never
thought before — how to get rid of that Ugly-
Wugly."

Every one thought, but their brains were
tired with anxiety and distress, and the
thoughts they thought were, as Mabel said,
not worth thinking, let alone saying.

" I suppose Jimmy's all right," said Kathleen
anxiously.

" Oh, he's all right : he's got the ring," said
Gerald.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 225

"I hope he won't go wishing anything rotten,"
said Mabel, but Gerald urged her to shut up and
let him think.

"I think I think best sitting down," he said,
and sat ; " and sometimes you can think best
aloud. The Ugly-Wugly s real — don't make any
mistake about that. And lie got made real
inside that passage. If we could get him back
there he might get changed again, and then
we could take the coats and things back."

"Isn't there any other way ?" Kathleen asked ;
and Mabel, more candid, said bluntly : ' ; I'm not
going into that passage, so there ! "

" Afraid ! In broad daylight," Gerald sneered.

" It wouldn't be broad daylight in there," said
Mabel, and Kathleen shivered.

" If we went to him and suddenly tore his
coat off," said she — " he is only coats — he
couldn't go on being real then."

" Couldn't he ! " said Gerald. " You don't
know what he's like under the coat."

Kathleen shivered again. And all this time
the sun was shining gaily and the white
statues and the green trees and the fountains
and terraces looked as cheerfully romantic as
a scene in a play.

" Any way," said Gerald, " we'll try to get
him back, and shut the door. That's the most
we can hope for. And then apples, and " Robin-
son Crusoe " or the " Swiss Family/' or any book
you like that's got no magic in it. Now, we've
just got to do it. And he's not horrid now ;
really he isn't. He's real, you see."

15

226 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" I suppose that makes all the difference," said
Mabel, and tried to feel that perhaps it did.

"And it's broad daylight — just look at the
sun," Gerald insisted. " Come on ! "

He took a hand of each, and they walked
resolutely towards the bank of rhododendrons
behind which Jimmy and the Ugly-Wugly
had been told to wait, and as they went Gerald
said : " He's real " — " The sun's shining " — " It'll
all be over in a minute." And he said these
things again and again, so that there should
be no mistake about them.

As they neared the bushes the shining leaves
rustled, shivered, and parted, and before the girl
had time to begin to hang back Jimmy came
blinking out into the sunlight. The boughs
closed behind him, and they did not stir or
rustle for the appearance of auy one else.
Jimmy was alone.

" Where is it ? " asked the girls in one
breath.

"Walking up and down in a fir-walk," said
Jimmy, " doing sums in a book. He says he's
most frightfully rich, and he's got to get up
to town to the Stocks or something — where
they change papers into gold if you're clever,
he says. I should like to go to the Stocks-
change, wouldn't you?"

" I don't seem to care very much about
changes," said Gerald. " I've had enough.
Show us where he is — we must get rid of
him."

" He's got a motor-car," Jimmy went on,

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 227

parting the warm varnished-looking rhododen-
dron leaves, " and a garden with a tennis-court
and a lake and a carriage and pair, and he goes
to Athens for his holiday sometimes, just like
other people go to Margate."

" The best thing," said Gerald, following
through the bushes, "will be to tell him the
shortest way out is through that hotel that
he thinks he found last night. Then we get
him into the passage, give him a push, fly back,
and shut the door."

"He'll starve to death in there," said Kath-
leen, " if he's really real."

" I expect it doesn't last long, the ring
magics don't — anyway, it's the only thing I
enn think of."

" He's frightfully rich," Jimmy went on un-
heeding amid the cracking of the bushes; "he's
building a public library for the people where
he lives, and having his portrait painted to put
in it. He thinks they'll like that."

The belt of rhododendrons was passed, and
the children had reached a smooth grass walk
bordered by tall pines and firs of strange
different kinds. "He's just round that corner,"
said Jimmy. " He's simply rolling in money.
He doesn't know what to do with it. He's
been building a horse-trough and drinking
fountain with a bust of himself on top. Why
doesn't he build a private swimming-bath close
to his bed, so that he can just roll off into it of
a morning ? I wish / was rich ; I'd soon show
him "

228 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" That's a sensible wish," said Gerald. " I
wonder we didn't think of doing that. Oh,
criky ! " he added, and with reason. For there,
in the green shadows of the pine- walk, in the
woodland silence, broken only by rustling leaves
and the agitated breathing of the three unhappy
others, Jimmy got his wish. By quick but
perfectly plain-to-be-seen degrees Jimmy be-
came rich. And the horrible thing Avas that
though they could see it happening they did
not know what was happening, and could not
have stopped it if they had. All they could see
was Jimmy, their own Jimmy, whom they had
larked with and quarrelled with and made it up
with ever since they could remember, Jimmy
continuously and horribly growing old. The
whole thing was over in a few seconds. Yet
in those few seconds they saw him grow to a
youth, a young man, a middle-aged man ; and
then, with a sort of shivering shock, unspeak-
ably horrible and definite, he seemed to settle
down into an elderly gentleman, handsomely
but rather dowdily dressed, who was looking
down at them through spectacles and asking
them the nearest way to the railway-station.
If they had not seen the change take place, in
all its awful details, they would never have
guessed that this stout, prosperous, elderly
gentleman with the high hat, the frock-coat,
and the large red seal dangling from the
curve of a portly waistcoat, was their own
Jimmy. But, as they had seen it, they knew
the dreadful truth.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 229

"Oh, Jimmy, dont!" cried Mabel desperately.

Gerald said: "This is perfectly beastly," and
Kathleen broke into wild weeping.

"Don't cry, little girl!" said That-which-had-
been -Jimmy ; "and you, boy, can't you give a
civil answer to a civil question?"

"He doesn't know us!" wailed Kathleen.

"Who doesn't know you?" said That-which-
had-been impatiently.

" Y — y — you don't ! " Kathleen sobbed.

" I certainly don't," returned That-which

" but surely that need not distress you so
deeply."

" Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy ! " Kathleen
sobbed louder than before.

" He doesnt know us," Gerald owned, " or—
look here, Jimmy, y — you aren't kidding, are
you ? Because if you are it's simply abject
rot ■"

"My name is Mr. ," said That-which-

had-been-Jimmy, and gave the name correctly.
By the way, it will perhaps be shorter to call
this elderly stout person who was Jimmy grown
rich by some simpler name than I have just
used. Let us call him "That"— short for "That-
which-had-been- Jimmy."

" What are we to do?" whispered Mabel, awe-
struck ; and aloud she said : " Oh, Mr. James,
or whatever you call yourself, do give me the
ring." For on That's finger the fatal ring
showed plain.

"Certainly not," said That firmly. "You
appear to be a very grasping child."

230 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

"But what are you going to do?" Gerald
asked in the flat tones of complete hopelessness.

" Your interest is very flattering," said That.
" Will you tell me, or won't you, the way to the
nearest railway-station ? "

" No," said Gerald, " we won't."

" Then," said That, still politely, though quite
plainly furious, " perhaps you'll tell me the way
to the nearest lunatic asylum ? "

" Oh, no, no, no ! " cried Kathleen. " You're
not so bad as that."

" Perhaps not. But you are," That retorted ;
" if you're not lunatics you're idiots. However,
I see a gentleman ahead who is perhaps sane.
In fact, I seem to recognise him." A gentleman,
indeed, was now to be seen approaching. It was
the elderly Ugly-Wugly.

" Oh ! don't you remember Jerry ? " Kathleen
cried, " and Cathy, your own Cathy Puss Cat ?
Dear, dear Jimmy, don't be so silly ! "

hi Little girl," said That, looking at her crossly
through his spectacles, " I am sorry you have
not been better brought up." And he walked
stiffly towards the Ugly-Wugly. Two hats
were raised, a few words were exchanged, and
two elderly figures walked side by side down the
green pine-walk, followed by three miserable
children, horrified, bewildered, alarmed, and,
what is really worse than anything, quite at
their wits' end.

" He wished to be rich, so of course he is,"
said Gerald ; " he'll have money for tickets and
everything."

TWO HATS WERE RAISED.

232 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" And when the spell breaks — it's sure to
break, isn't it? — he'll find himself somewhere
awful — perhaps in a really good hotel — and
not know how he got there."

" I wonder how long the Ugly-Wuglies'
lasted," said Mabel.

"Yes," Gerald answered, "that reminds me.
Yon two must collect the coats and things.
Hide them, anywhere you like, and we'll carry
them home to-morrow — if there is any to-
morrow," he added darkly.

" Oh, don't ! " said Kathleen, once more breath-
ing heavily on the verge of tears : "you
wouldn't think everything could be so awful,
and the sun shining like it does."

" Look here," said Gerald, " of course I must
stick to Jimmy. You two must go home to
Mademoiselle and tell her Jimmy and I have
gone off in the train with a gentleman — say he
looked like an uncle. He does — some kinds of
uncle. There'll be a beastly row afterwards,
but it's got to be done."

" It all seems thick with lies," said Kathleen ;
" you don't seem to be able to get a word of
truth in edgewise hardly."

" Don't you worry," said her brother ; " they
aren't lies — they're as true as anything else in
this magic rot we've got mixed up in. It's like
telling lies in a dream ; you can't help it."

" Well, all I know is I wish it would stop."

" Lot of use your wishing that is," said Gerald,
exasperated. " So long. I've got to go, and
you've got to stay. If it's any comfort to you,

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 233

I don't believe any of it's real : it can't be ; it's
too thick. Tell Mademoiselle Jimmy and I will
be back to tea. If we don't happen to be I can't
help it. I can't help anything, except perhaps
Jimmy." He started to rim, for the girls had
lagged, and the Ugly-Wugly and That (late
Jimmy) had quickened their pace.

The girls were left looking after them.

"We've got to find these clothes," said Mabel,
"simply got to. I used to want to be a heroine.
It's different when it really comes to being,
isn't it?"

"Yes, very," said Kathleen. "Where shall
we hide the clothes when we've got them ?
Not — not that passage ? "

" Never ! " said Mabel firmly ; " we'll hide them
inside the great stone dinosaurus. He's hollow/'

" He comes alive — in his stone," said Kathleen.

" Not in the sunshine he doesn't," Mabel told
her confidently, " and not without the ring."

" There won't be any apples and books to-day,"
said Kathleen.

"No, but we'll do the babiest thing we can do
the minute we get home. We'll have a dolls'
tea-party. That'll make us feel as if there
wasn't really any magic."

" It'll have to be a very strong tea party,
then," said Kathleen doubtfully.

And now we see Gerald, a small but quite
determined figure, paddling along in the soft
white dust of the sunny road, in the wake

234 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

of two elderly gentlemen. His hand, in his
trousers pocket, buries itself with a feeling of
satisfaction in the heavy mixed coinage that
is his share of the profits of his conjuring at
the fair. His noiseless tennis-shoes bear him
to the station, where, unobserved, he listens at
the ticket office to the voice of That-which-
was-James. " One first London," it says ; and
Gerald, waiting till That and the Ugly-Wugly
have strolled on to the platform, politely con-
versing of politics and the Kaffir market, takes
a third return to London. The train strides in,
squeaking and puffing. The watched take their
seats in a carriage blue-lined. The watcher
springs into a yellow wooden compartment.
A whistle sounds, a flag is waved. The train
pulls itself together, strains, jerks, and starts.

" I don't understand," says Gerald, alone in
his third-class carriage, " how railway trains
and magic can go on at the same time."

And yet they do.

*****

Mabel and Kathleen, nervously peering among
the rhododendron bashes and the bracken and
the fancy fir-trees, find six several heaps of
coats, hats, skirts, gloves, golf -clubs, hockey-
sticks, broom-handles. They carry them,
panting and damp, for the mid-day sun is
pitiless, up the hill to where the stone dino-
saurus looms immense among a forest of
larches. The dinosaurus has a hole in his
stomach. Kathleen shows Mabel how to " make

236 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

a back " and climbs up on it into the cold, stony
inside of the monster. Mabel hands up the
clothes and the sticks.

" There's lots of room," says Kathleen ; " its
tail goes down into the ground. It's like a
secret passage."

" Suppose something comes out of it and
jumps out at you," says Mabel, and Kathleen
hurriedly descends.

The explanations to Mademoiselle promise to
be difficult, but, as Kathleen said afterwards,
any little thing is enough to take a grown-up's
attention off. A figure passes the window just
as they are explaining that it really did look
exactly like an uncle that the boys have gone
to London with.

"Who's that?" says Mademoiselle suddenly,
pointing, too, which every one knows is not
manners.

It is the bailiff coming back from the
doctor's with antiseptic plaster on that nasty
cut that took so long a-bathing this morning.
They tell her it is the bailiff at Yalding
Towers, and she says, "Sky!" {del!) and
asks no more awkward questions about the
boys. Lunch — very late — is a silent meal.
After lunch Mademoiselle goes out, in a hat
with many pink roses, carrying a rose-lined
parasol. The girls, in dead silence, organise a
dolls' tea-party, with real tea. At the second
cup Kathleen bursts into tears. Mabel, also
weeping, embraces her.

" I wish," sobs Kathleen, " oh, I do wish I

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 237

knew where the boys were ! It would be such

a comfort."

*****

Gerald knew where the boys were, and it was
no comfort to him at all. If you come to think
of it, he was the only person who could know
where they were, because Jimmy didn't know
that he was a boy — and indeed he wasn't really
— and the Ugly-Wugly couldn't be expected to
know any thing real, such as where boys were.
At the moment when the second cup of dolls'
tea — very strong, but not strong enough to
drown care in — was being poured out by
the trembling hand of Kathleen, Gerald was
lurking — there really is no other word for it —
on the staircase of Aldermanbury Buildings,
Old Broad Street. On the floor below him
was a door bearing the legend "Mr. U. W.
Ugli, Stock and Share Broker. And at the
Stock Exchange," and on the floor above was
another door, on which was the name of
Gerald's little brother, now grown suddenly
rich in so magic and tragic a way. There
were no explaining words under Jimmy's
name. Gerald could not guess what walk in
life it was to which That (which had been
Jimmy) owed its affluence. He had seen, when
the door opened to admit his brother, a tangle
of clerks and mahogany desks. Evidently That
had a large business.

What was Gerald to do? What could he do?

It is almost impossible, especially for one so
young as Gerald, to enter a large London office

238 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

and explain that the elderly and respected head
of it is not what he seems, but is really your
little brother, who has been suddenly advanced
to age and wealth by a tricky wishing ring. If
you think it's a possible thing, try it, that's all.
Nor could he knock at the door of Mr. U. W.
Ugli, Stock and Share Broker (and at the Stock
Exchange), and inform his clerks that their
chief was really nothing but old clothes that
had accidentally come alive, and by some magic,
which he couldn't attempt to explain, become
real during a night spent at a really good hotel
which had no existence.

The situation bristled, as you see, with diffi-
culties. And it was so long past Gerald's
proper dinner-time that his increasing hunger
was rapidly growing to seem the most im-
portant difficulty of all. It is quite possible
to starve to death on the staircase of a London
building if the people you are watching for only
stay long enough in their offices. The truth of
this came home to Gerald more and more
painfully.

A boy with hair like a new front door mat
came whistling up the stairs. He had a dark
blue bag in his hands.

" I'll give you a tanner for yourself if you'll
get me a tanner's worth of buns," said Gerald,
with that prompt decision common to all great
commanders.

" Show us yer tanners," the boy rejoined with
at least equal promptness. Gerald showed them.
" All right ; hand over."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 239

"Payment on delivery," said Gerald, using
words from the drapers which he had never
thought to use.

The boy grinned admiringly.

" Knows 'is wy abaht," he said ; " ain't no flies
on 'im."

" Not many," Gerald owned with modest
pride. " Cut along, there's a good chap. I've
got to wait here. I'll take care of your bag
if you like."

" Nor yet there ain't no flies on me neither,"
remarked the boy, shouldering it. "I been up
to the confidence trick for years — ever since
I was your age."

With this parting shot he went, and re-
turned in due course bun-laden. Gerald gave
the sixpence and took the buns. When the boy,
a minute later, emerged from the door of Mr.
U. W. Ugli, Stock and Share Broker (and at the
Stock Exchange), Gerald stopped him.

" What sort of chap's that ? " he asked, point-
ing the question with a jerk of an explaining
thumb.

" Awful big pot," said the boy ; " up to his
eyes in oof. Motor and all that."

" Know anything about the one on the next
landing ? "

" He's bigger than what this one is. Very
old firm — special cellar in the Bank of England
to put his chink in — all in bins like against
the wall at the corn-chandler's. Jimminy, I
wouldn't mind 'alf an hour in there, and the
doors open and the police away at a beano.

240 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

Not much ! Neither. You'll bust if you eat
all them buns."

" Have one ? " Gerald responded, and held out
the bag.

" They say in our office," said the boy, paying
for the bun honourably with unasked informa-
tion, " as these two is all for cutting each other's
throats — oh, only in the way of business — been
at it for years."

Gerald wildly wondered what magic and
how much had been needed to give history
and a past to these two things of yesterday,
the rich Jimmy and the Ugly-Wugly. If he
could get them away would all memory of
them fade — in this boy's mind, for instance,
in the minds of all the people who did business
with them in the City ? Would the mahogany-
and-clerk-f urnished offices fade away ? Were
the clerks real ? Was the mahogany ? Was
he himself real ? Was the boy ?

" Can you keep a secret ? " he asked the other
boy. " Are you on for a lark ? "

" I ought to be getting back to the office,"
said the boy.

" Get then ! " said Gerald.

" Don't you get stuffy," said the boy. " I
was just agoing to say it didn't matter. I
know how to make my nose bleed if I'm a
bit late."

Gerald congratulated him on this accomplish-
ment, at once so useful and so graceful, and
then said : —

" Look here. I'll give you five bob — honest."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 241

' What for ? " was the boy's natural question.

" If you'll help me."

"Fire ahead."

" I'm a private inquiry," said Gerald.

"'Tec? You don't look it."

" What's the good of being one if you look
it ? " Gerald asked impatiently, beginning on
another bun. "That old chap on the floor
above — he's wanted."

" Police ? " asked the boy with fine care-
lessness.

" No — sorrowing relations."

" ' Return to,' " said the boy ; " ' all forgotten
and forgiven.' I see."

" And I've got to get him to them, somehow.
Now, if you could go in and give him a message
from some one who wanted to meet him on
business "

" Hold on ! " said the boy. " I know a trick
worth two of that. You go in and see old
Ugli. He'd give his ears to have the old boy
out of the way for a day or two. They were
saying so in our office only this morning."

" Let me think," said Gerald, laying down
the last bun on his knee expressly to hold his
head in his hands.

" Don't you forget to think about my five
bob," said the boy.

Then there was a silence on the stairs, broken
only by the cough of a clerk in That's office, and
the clickety-clack of a typewriter in the office
of Mr. U. W. Ugli.

Then Gerald rose up and finished the bun.

16

212 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" You're right," he said. " I'll chance it.
Here's your five bob."

He brushed the bun crumbs from his
front, cleared his throat, and knocked at
the door of Mr. U. W. Ugli. It opened and
he entered.

The door-mat boy lingered, secure in his
power to account for his long absence by means
of his well-trained nose, and his waiting was
rewarded. He went down a few steps, round
the bend of the stairs, and heard the voice of
Mr. U. W. Ugli, so well known on that stair-
case (and on the Stock Exchange) say in soft,
cautious accents : — ■

" Then I'll ask him to let me look at the
ring — and I'll drop it. You pick it up. But
remember, it's a pure accident, and you don't
know me. I can't have my name mixed up in
a thing like this. You're sure he's really un-
hinged ? "

" Quite," said Gerald ; " he's quite mad about
that ring. He'll follow it anywhere. I know
he will. And think of his sorrowing relations."

"I do— I do," said Mr. Ugli kindly; "that's
all I do think of, of course."

He went up the stairs to the other office,
and Gerald heard the voice of That telling
his clerks that he was going out to lunch.
Then the horrible Ugly-Wugly and Jimmy,
hardly less horrible in the eyes of Gerald, passed
down the stairs where, in the dusk of the lower
landing, two boys were making themselves as
undistinguishable as possible, and so out into the

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 243

street, talking of stocks and shares, bears and
balls. The two boys followed.

" I say," the door-mat-headed boy whispered
admiringly, "whatever are you up to?"

" You'll see," said Gerald recklessly. " Come
on !

" You tell me. I must be getting back."

" Well, I'll tell you, but you won't believe me.
That old gentleman's not really old at all — he's
my young brother suddenly turned into what
you see. The other's not real at all. He's
only just old clothes and nothing inside."

" He looks it, I must say," the boy admitted ;
" but I say — you do stick it on, don't you ? "

" Well, my brother was turned like that by
a magic ring."

"There ain't no such thing as magic," said
the boy. " I learnt that at school."

" All right," said Gerald. " Goodbye."

" Oh, go ahead ! " said the boy ; " you do stick
it on, though."

" Well, that magic ring. If I can get hold
of it I shall just wish we were all in a certain
place. And we shall be. And then I can deal
■with both of them."

"Deal?"

"Yes, the ring won't unwish anything
you've wished. That undoes itself with time,
like a spring uncoiling. But it'll give you a
brand-new wish — I'm almost certain of it. Any-
how, I'm going to chance it."

"You are a rotter, aren't you?" said the boy
respectfully.

214 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" You wait and see/' Gerald repeated.

" I say, you aren't going into this swell place !
you cant ? "

The boy paused, appalled at the majesty of
Pym's.

" Yes, I am — they can't turn us out as long
as we behave. You come along, too. I'll stand
lunch."

I don't know why Gerald clung so to this
boy. He wasn't a very nice boy. Perhaps it
was because he was the only person Gerald
knew in London, to speak to — except That-
which-had-been-Jimmy and the Ugly-Wugly ;
and he did not want to talk to either of them.

What happened next happened so quickly
that, as Gerald said later, it was "just like
magic." The restaurant was crowded — busy
men were hastily bolting the food hurriedly
brought by busy waitresses. There was a clink
of forks and plates, the gurgle of beer from
bottles, the hum of talk, and the smell of many
good things to eat.

" Two chops, please," Gerald had just said,
playing with a plainly shown handful of money,
so as to leave no doubt of his honourable
intentions. Then at the next table he heard
the words, "Ah, yes, curious old family heir-
loom," the ring was drawn off the finger of
That, and Mr. U. W. Ugli, murmuring some-
thing about a unique curio, reached his impos-
sible hand out for it. The door-mat-headed
boy was watching breathlessly. '

"There's a ring right enough," he owned.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 245

And then the ring slipped from the hand of
Mr. U. W. Ugli and skidded along the floor.
Gerald pounced on it like a greyhound on a hare.
He thrust the dull circlet on his finger and cried
out aloud in that crowded place : —

" I wish Jimmy and I were inside that door
behind the statue of Flora."

It was the only safe place he could think of.

The lights and sounds and scents of the
restaurant died away as a wax-drop dies in
fire — a rain-drop in water. I don't know, and
Gerald never knew, what happened in that
restaurant. There was nothing about it in the
papers, though Gerald looked anxiously for
Ci Extraordinary Disappearance of well-known
City Man." What the door-mat-headed boy
did or thought I don't know either. No more
does Gerald. But he would like to know,
whereas I don't care tuppence. The world
went on all right, anyhow, whatever he thought
or did. The lights and the sounds and the
scents of Pym's died out. In place of the light
there was darkness ; in place of the sounds there
was silence ; and in place of the scent of beef,
pork, mutton, fish, veal, cabbage, onions, carrots,
beer, and tobacco there was the musty, damp
scent of a place underground that has been
long shut up.

Gerald felt sick and giddy, and there was
something at the back of his mind that he knew
would make him feel sicker and giddier as soon
as he should have the sense to remember what
it was. Meantime it was important to think of

"T+.\<t • *« <w^4.<.o;

HE CRIED OUT ALOUD IN THAT CROWDED PLACE : " I WISH JIMMY AND
I WERE INSIDE THAT DOOR BEHIND THE STATUE OF FLORA."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 247

proper words to soothe the City man that had
once been Jimmy — to keep him quiet till Time,
like a spring uncoiling, should bring the reversal
of the spell — make all things as they were and
as they ought to be. l>ut he fought in vain for
words. There were none. Nor were they needed.
For through the dee}> darkness came a voice —
and it was not the voice of that City man who
had been Jimmy, but the voice of that very
Jimmy who was Gerald's little brother, and who
had wished that unlucky wish for riches that
could only be answered by changing all that
was Jimmy, young and poor, to all that Jimmy,
rich and old, would have been. Another voice
said : " deny, Jerry ! Are you awake ? — I've had
such a rum dream."

And then there was a moment when nothing
was said or done.

Gerald felt through the thick darkness, and
the thick silence, and the thick scent of old
earth shut up, and he got hold of Jimmy's hand.

"It's all right, Jimmy, old chap," he said:
" it's not a dream now. Its that beastly ring
again. I had to wish us here, to get you back at
all out of your dream."

" Wish us where ? " Jimmy held on to the
hand in a w r ay that in the daylight of life he
would have been the first to call babyish.

" Inside the passage — behind the Flora statue,"
said Gerald, adding, " it's all right, really."

"Oh, I daresay it's all right," Jimmy answered
through the dark, with an irritation not strong
enough to make him loosen his hold of his

248 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

brother's hand. " But hoic are we going to get
out ? "

Then Gerald knew what it was that was wait-
ing to make him feel more giddy than the
lightning flight from Cheaj)side to Yalding
Towers had been able to make him. But he
said stoutly :

" I'll wish us out, of course." Though all the
time he knew that the ring would not undo its
given wishes.

It didn't.

Gerald wished. He handed the ring carefully
to Jimmy, through the thick darkness. And
Jimmy wished.

And there they still were, in that black
passage behind Flora, that had led — in the case
of one Ugly-Wugly at least— to " a good hotel."
And the stone door was shut. And they did not
know even which way to turn to it.

" If I only had some matches ! " said Gerald.

"Why didn't you leave me in the dream?"
Jimmy almost whimpered. " It was light there,
and I was just going to have salmon and
cucumber."

" I," rejoined Gerald in gloom, " was just
going to have steak and fried potatoes."

The silence, and the darkness, and the earthy
scent were all they had now.

"I always wondered what it would be like,'
said Jimmy in low, even tones, " to be buried
alive. And now I know ! Oh ! " his voice sud-
denly rose to a shriek, " it isn't true, it isn't !
It's a dream — that's what it is ! "

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 249

There was a pause while you could have
counted ten. Then —

" Yes," said Gerald bravely, through the scent
and the silence and the darkness, " it's just a
dream, Jimmy, old chap. We'll just hold on,
and call out now and then just for the lark of
the thing. But it's really only a dream, of
course."

"Of course," said Jimmy in the silence and
the darkness and the scent of old earth.

CHAPTER IX

There is a curtain, thin as gossamer, clear as
glass, strong as iron, that hangs for ever be-
tween the world of magic and the world that
seems to us to be real. And when once people
have found one of the little weak spots in that
curtain which are marked by magic rings, and
amulets, and the like, almost anything may
happen. Thus it is not surprising that Mabel
and Kathleen, conscientiously conducting one of
the dullest dolls' tea-parties at which either had
ever assisted, should suddenly, and both at once,
have felt a strange, unreasonable, but quite
irresistible desire to return instantly to the
Temple of Flora — even at the cost of leaving
the dolls' tea-service in an unwashed state, and
only half the raisins eaten. They went — as one
has to go when the magic impulse drives one —
against their better judgment, against their
wills almost.

And the nearer they came to the Temple of
Flora, in the golden hush of the afternoon, the
more certain each was that they could not
possibly have done otherwise.

And this explains exactly how it was that

250

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 251

when Gerald and Jimmy, holding hands in the
darkness of the passage, uttered their first con-
certed yell, " just for the lark of the thing," that
yell was instantly answered from outside.

A crack of light showed in that part of the
passage where they had least expected the door
to be. The stone door itself swung slowly open,
and they were out of it, in the Temple of Flora,
blinking in the good daylight, an unresisting
prey to Kathleen's embraces and the questionings
of Mabel.

"And you left that Ugly-Wugly loose in
London," Mabel pointed out ; " you might have
wished it to be with you, too."

' ; It's all right where it is," said Gerald. " I
couldn't think of everything. And besides, no,
thank you ! Now we'll go home and seal up the
ring in an envelope."

"I haven't done anything with the ring yet,"
said Kathleen.

" I shouldn't think you'd want to when you
see the sort of things it does with you," said
Gerald.

" It wouldn't do things like that if / was
wishing with it," Kathleen protested.

" Look here," said Mabel, " let's just put it
back in the treasure-room and have done with
it. I oughtn't ever to have taken it away, really.
It's a sort of stealing. It's quite as bad, really,
as Eliza borrowing it to astonish her gentleman
friend with."

" I don't mind putting it back if you like,"
said Gerald, " only if any of us do think of a

252 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

sensible wish you'll let us have it out again, of
course ? "

" Of course, of course," Mabel agreed.

So they trooped up to the castle, and Mabel
once more worked the spring that let down the
panelling and showed the jewels, and the ring
was put back among the odd dull ornaments
that Mabel had once said were magic.

" How innocent it looks ! " said Gerald. " You
wouldn't think there was any magic about it.
It's just like an old silly ring. I wonder if what
Mabel said about the other things is true !
Suppose we try."

" Dont!" said Kathleen. " /think magic things
are spiteful. ,They just enjoy getting you into
tight places."

"I'd like to try," said Mabel, "only— well,
everything's been rather upsetting, and I've
forgotten what I said anything was."

So had the others. Perhaps that was why,
when Gerald said that a bronze buckle laid on
the foot would have the effect of seven-league
boots, it didn't ; when Jimmy, a little of the City
man he had been clinging to him still, said that
the steel collar would ensure your always having
money in your pockets, his own remained
empty ; and when Mabel and Kathleen invented
qualities of the most delightful nature for
various rings and chains and brooches, nothing
at all happened.

"It's only the ring that's magic," said Mabel
at last ; " and, I say ! " she added, in quite a
different voice.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 253

" What ? "

" Suppose even the ring isn't ! "

" But we know it is."

" I don't," said Mabel. " I believe it's not to-
day at all. I believe it's the other day — we've
just dreamed all these things. It's the day I
made up that nonsense about the ring."

" No, it isn't," said Gerald ; " you were in your
Princess-clothes then."

" What Princess-clothes ? " said Mabel, opening
her dark eyes very wide.

" Oh, don't be silly," said Gerald wearily.

" I'm not silly," said Mabel ; " and I think it's
time you went. I'm sure Jimmy wants his tea."

" Of course I do," said Jimmy. " But you had
got the Princess-clothes that day. Come along ;
let's shut up the shutters and leave the ring in
its long home."

" What ring ? " said Mabel.

"Don't take any notice of her," said Gerald.
" She's only trying to be funny."

" No, I'm not," said Mabel ; " but I'm inspired
like a Python or a Sibylline lady. What ring ? "

" The wishing-ring," said Kathleen ; " the in-
visibility ring."

" Don't you see now" said Mabel, her eyes
wider than ever, " the ring's what you say it
is? That's how it came to make us invisible —
I just said it. Oh, we can't leave it here, if
that's what it is. It isn't stealing, really, when
it's as valuable as that, you see. Say what

it IS.

" It's a wishing-ring," said Jimmy.

254 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

"We've had that before — and you had your
silly wish," said Mabel, more and more excited.
" I say it isn't a wishing-ring. I say it's a ring
that makes the wearer four yards high."

She had caught up the ring as she spoke, and
even as she spoke the ring showed high above
the children's heads on the finger of an im-
possible Mabel, who was, indeed, twelve feet
high.

"Now you've done it!" said Gerald — and he
was right. It was in vain that Mabel asserted
that the ring was a wishing-ring. It quite
clearly wasn't ; it was what she had said it was.

" And you can't tell at all how long the effect
will last," said Gerald. " Look at the invisible-
ness." This is difficult to do, but the others
understood him.

" It may last for days," said Kathleen. " Oh,
Mabel, it was silly of you ! "

" That's right, rub it in," said Mabel bitterly ;
" you should have believed me when I said it
was what I said it was. Then I shouldn't have
had to show you, and I shouldn't be this silly
size. What am I to do now, I should like to
know ? "

" We must conceal you till you get your right
size again — that's all," said Gerald practically.

" Yes — but where ? " said Mabel, stamping a
foot twenty-four inches long.

" In one of the empty rooms. You wouldn't
be afraid ? "

" Of course not," said Mabel. " Oh, I do wish,
we'd just put the ring back and left it."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 255

" Well, it wasn't us that didn't," said Jimmy,
with more truth than grammar.

" I shall put it hack now," said Mabel, tugging
at it.

" I wouldn't if I were you," said Gerald
thoughtfully. " You don't want to stay that
length, do you ? And unless the ring's on your
linger when the time's up, 1 dare say it wouldn't
act."

The exalted Mabel sullenly touched the spring.
The panels slowly slid into place, and all the
bright jewels were hidden. Once more the room
was merely eight-sided, panelled, sunlit, and
unfurnished.

" Now," said Mabel, " where am I to hide ?
It's a good thing auntie gave me leave to stay
the night with you. As it is, one of you will
have to stay the night with me. I'm not going
to be left alone, the silly height I am."

Height was the right word ; Mabel had said
" four yards high "—and she was four yards
high. But she was hardly any thicker than
when her height was four feet seven, and the
effect was, as Gerald remarked, " wonderfully
worm-like." Her clothes had, of course, grown
with her, and she looked like a little girl re-
flected in one of those long bent mirrors at
Rosherville Gardens, that make stout people
look so happily slender, and slender people so
sadly scraggy. She sat down suddenly on the
floor, and it was like a four-fold foot-rule folding
itself up.

" It's no use sitting there, girl," said Gerald.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 257

" I'm not sitting here," retorted Mabel ; " I
only got down so as to be able to get through
the door. It'll have to be hands and knees
through most places for me now, I suppose."

" Aren't you hungry ? " Jimmy asked suddenly.

"I don't know," said Mabel desolately; "it's
— it's such a long way off ! "

" Well, I'll scout," said Gerald ; " if the coast's
clear "

"Look here," said Mabel, "I think I'd rather
be out of doors till it gets dark."'

" You cant. Some one's certain to see you."

"Not if I go through the yew-hedge," said
Mabel. " There's a yew-hedge with a passage
along its inside like the box-hedge in 'The Luck
of the Tails.' "

"In tchat ;/"

" ' The Luck of the Vails.' It's a ripping book.
It was that book first set me on to hunt for
hidden doors in panels and things. If I crept
along that on my front, like a serpent — it comes
out amongst the rhododendrons, close by the
dinosaurus — we could camp there."

" There's tea," said Gerald, who had had no
dinner.

"That's just what there isn't," said Jimmy,
who had had none either.

" Oh, you wont desert me ! " said Mabel.
" Look here — I'll write to auntie. She'll give
you the things for a picnic, if she's there and
awake. If she isn't, one of the maids will."

So she wrote on a leaf of Gerald's invaluable
pocket-book : —

17

258 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" Dearest Auntie, —

" Please may we have some things for a
picnic ? Gerald will bring them. I would come
myself, but I am a little tired. I think I have
been growing rather fast. — Your loving niece,

" Mabel."

" P.S. — Lots, please, because some of us are
very hungry."

It was found difficult, but possible, for Mabel
to creep along the tunnel in the yew-hedge.
Possible, but slow, so that the three had hardly
had time to settle themselves among the rhodo-
dendrons and to wonder bitterly what on earth
Gerald was up to, to be such a time gone, when
he returned, panting under the weight of a
covered basket. He dumped it down on the fine
grass carpet, groaned, and added, " But it's worth
it. Where's our Mabel ? "

The long, pale face of Mabel peered out from
rhododendron leaves, very near the ground.

" I look just like anybody else like this, don't
I ? " she asked anxiously ; " all the rest of me's
miles away, under different bushes."

" We've covered up the bits between the
bushes with bracken and leaves," said Kathleen,
avoiding the question ; " don't wriggle, Mabel,
or you'll waggle them off."

Jimmy was eagerly unpacking the basket. It
was a generous tea. A long loaf, butter in a
cabbage-leaf, a bottle of milk, a bottle of water,
cake, and large, smooth, yellow gooseberries in
a box that had once held an extra-sized bottle

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 259

of somebody's matchless something for the hair
and moustache. Mabel cautiously advanced her
incredible arms from the rhododendron and
leaned on one of her spindly elbows, Gerald cut
bread and butter, while Kathleen obligingly ran
round, at Mabel's request, to see that the green
coverings had not dropped from any of the
remoter parts of Mabel's person. Then there
was a happy, hungry silence, broken only by
those brief, impassioned suggestions natural to
such an occasion : —

" More cake, please."

" Milk ahoy, there."

" Chuck us the goosegogs."

Everyone grew calmer — more contented with
their lot. A pleasant feeling, half tiredness and
half restfulness, crept to the extremities of the
party. Even the unfortunate Mabel was con-
scious of it in her remote feet, that lay crossed
under the third rhododendron to the north-
north-west of the tea-party. Gerald did but
voice the feelings of the others when he said,
not without regret : —

" Well, I'm a new man, but I couldn't eat so
much as another goosegog if you paid me."

"/ could," said Mabel; "yes, I know they're
all gone, and I've had my share. But I could.
It's me being so long, I suppose."

A delicious after- food peace filled the summer
air. At a little distance the green-lichencd grey
of the vast stone dinosaurus showed through
the shrubs. He, too, seemed peaceful and
happy. Gerald caught his stone eye through

260 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

a gap in the foliage. His glance seemed some-
how sympathetic.

" I dare say he liked a good meal in his day,"
said Gerald, stretching luxuriously.

"Who did?"

" The dino what's-his-name," said Gerald.

" He had a meal to-day," said Kathleen, and
giggled.

"Yes — didn't he?" said Mabel, giggling also.

" You mustn't laugh lower than your chest,"
said Kathleen anxiously, " or your green stuff
will joggle off."

" What do you mean — a meal ? " Jimmy
asked suspiciously. " What are you sniggering
about ? "

" He had a meal. Things to put in his inside,"
said Kathleen, still giggling.

" Oh, be funny if you want to," said Jimmy,
suddenly cross. " We don't want to know — do
we, Jerry?"

" I do," said Gerald witheringly ; " I'm dying
to know. Wake me, you girls, when you've
finished pretending you're not going to tell."

He tilted his hat over his eyes, and lay back
in the attitude of slumber.

" Oh, don't be stupid ! " said Kathleen hastily.
" It's only that we fed the dinosaurus through
the hole in his stomach with the clothes the
Ugly- Wuglies were made of ! "

" We can take them home with us, then," said
Gerald, chewing the white end of a grass stalk,
" so that's all right."

Look here," said Kathleen suddenly ; " I've

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 261

got an idea. Let me have the ring a bit. I
won't say what the idea is, in case it doesn't
come off, and then you'd say I was silly. I'll
give it back before we go."

" Oh, but you aren't going yet ! " said Mabel,
pleading. She pulled off the ring. " Of course,"
she added earnestly, " I'm only too glad for you
to try any idea, however silly it is."

Now, Kathleen's idea was quite simple. It
was only that perhaps the ring would change
its powers if some one else renamed it — some
one who was not under the power of its en-
chantment. So the moment it had passed from
the long, pale hand of Mabel to one of her own
fat, warm, red paws, she jumped up, crying,
" Let's go and empty the dinosaurus now" and
started to run swiftly towards that prehistoric
monster. She had a good start. She wanted
to say aloud, yet so that the others could not
hear her, " This is a wishing-ring. It gives you
any wish you choose." And she did say it.
And no one heard her, except the birds and
a squirrel or two, and perhaps a stone faun,
whose pretty face seemed to turn a laughing
look on her as she raced past its pedestal.

The way was uphill ; it was sunny, and Kath-
leen had run her hardest, though her brothers
caught her up before she reached the great
black shadow of the dinosaurus. So that when
she did reach that shadow she was very hot
indeed and not in any state to decide calmly on
the best wish to ask for.

" I'll get up and move the things down,

262 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

because I know exactly where I put them," she
said.

Gerald made a back, Jimmy assisted her to
climb up, and she disappeared through the hole
into the dark inside of the monster. In a
moment a shower began to descend from the
opening — a shower of empty waistcoats, trousers
with wildly waving legs, and coats with sleeves
uncontrolled.

" Heads below ! " called Kathleen, and down
came walking-sticks and golf-sticks and hockey-
sticks and broom-sticks, rattling and chattering
to each other as they came.

" Come on," said Jimmy.

" Hold on a bit," said Gerald. "I'm coming up."
He caught the edge of the hole above in his
hands and jumped. Just as he got his shoulders
through the opening and his knees on the edge
he heard Kathleen's boots on the floor of the
dinosaurus's inside, and Kathleen's voice saying :

" Isn't it jolly cool in here ? I suppose statues
are always cool. I do wish I was a statue.
Oh!"

The " oh " was a cry of horror and anguish.
And it seemed to be cut off very short by a
dreadful stony silence.

" What's up ? " Gerald asked. But in his heart
he knew. He climbed up into the great hollow.
In the little light that came up through the hole
he could see something white against the grey
of the creature's sides. He felt in his pockets,
still kneeling, struck a match, and when the
blue of its flame changed to clear yellow he

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 263

looked up to see what he had known he would
see — the face of Kathleen, white, stony, and life-
less. Her hair was white, too, and her hands,
clothes, shoes — everything was white, with the
hard, cold whiteness of marble. Kathleen had
her wish : she was a statue. There was a long
moment of perfect stillness in the inside of the
dinosaurus. Gerald could not speak. It was
too sudden, too terrible. It was worse than
anything that had happened yet. Then he
turned and spoke down out of that cold, stony
silence to Jimmy, in the green, sunny, rustling,
live world outside.

" Jimmy," he said, in tones perfectly ordinary
and matter of fact, ' : Kathleen's gone and said
that ring was a wishing-ring. And so it was,
of course. I see now what she was up to,
running like that. And then the young duffer
went and wished she was a statue."

" And is she ? " asked Jimmy, below.

" Come up and have a look," said Gerald.
And Jimmy came, partly with a pull from
Gerald and partly with a jump of his own.

" She's a statue, right enough," he said, in
awestruck tones. " Isn't it awful ! "

" Not at all," said Gerald firmly. " Come on —
let's go and tell Mabel."

To Mabel, therefore, who had discreetly re-
mained with her long length screened by
rhododendrons, the two boys returned and
broke the news. They broke it as one breaks
a bottle with a pistol-shot.

" Oh, my goodness ! " said Mabel, and writhed

KATHLKEX HAD IIEK WISH : SHE W.AS A STATUE.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 265

through her long length so that the leaves and
fern tumbled off in little showers, and she felt
the sun suddenly hot on the backs of her legs.
" What next ? Oh, my goodness ! "

" She'll come all right," said Gerald, with
outward calm.

" Yes ; but what about vie ? " Mabel urged.
" I haven't got the ring. And my time will be
up before hers is. Couldn't you get it back?
Can't you get it off her hand ? I'd put it back
on her hand the very minute I was my right
size again — faithfully I would."

" Well, it's nothing to blub about," said
Jimmy, answering the sniffs that had served
her in this speech for commas and full-stops ;
" not for you, anyway."

" Ah ! you don't know," said Mabel ; " you
don't know what it is to be as long as I am.
Do — do try and get the ring. After all, it is
my ring more than any of the rest of yours,
anyhow, because I did find it, and I did say it
was magic."

The sense of justice always present in the
breast of Gerald awoke to this appeal.

" I expect the ring's turned to stone — her
boots have, and all her clothes. But I'll go
and see. Only if I can't, I can't, and it's no use
your making a silly fuss."

The first match lighted inside the dinosaurus
showed the ring dark on the white hand of the
statuesque Kathleen.

The fingers were stretched straight out.
Gerald took hold of the ring, and, to his sur-

266 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

prise, it slipped easily off the cold, smooth
marble finger.

"I say, Cathy, old girl, I am sorry," he said,
and gave the marble hand a squeeze. Then it
came to him that perhaps she could hear him.
So he told the statue exactly what he and the
others meant to do. This helped to clear up
his ideas as to what he and the others did
mean to do. So that when, after thumping the
statue hear teningly on its marble back, he re-
turned to the rhododendrons, he was able to
give his orders with the clear precision of a
born leader, as he later said. And since the
others had, neither of them, thought of any
plan, his plan was accepted, as the plans of born
leaders are apt to be.

" Here's your precious ring," he said to Mabel.
" Now you're not frightened of anything, are
you?

" No," said Mabel, in surprise. " I'd forgotten
that. Look here, I'll stay here or farther up
in the wood if you'll leave me all the coats,
so that I sha'n't be cold in the night. Then I
shall be here when Kathleen comes out of the
stone again."

" Yes," said Gerald, " that was exactly the
born leader's idea."

"You two go home and tell Mademoiselle
that Kathleen's staying at the Towers. She is."

" Yes," said Jimmy, " she certainly is."

" The magic goes in seven-hour lots," said
Gerald ; " your invisibility was twenty-one
hours, mine fourteen, Eliza's seven. When it

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 267

was a wishing-ring it began with seven. But
there's no knowing what number it will be
really. So there's no knowing which of you
will come right first. Anyhow, we'll sneak out
by the cistern window and come down the
trellis, after we've said good-night to Mademoi-
selle, and come and have a, look at you before
we go to bed. I think you'd better conic close
up to the dinosaurus and we'll leaf you over
before we go."

Mabel crawled into cover of the taller trees,
and there stood up looking as slender as a
poplar and as unreal as the wrong answer to
a sum in long division. It was to her an easy
matter to crouch beneath the dinosaurus, to
put her head up through the opening, and
thus to behold the white form of Kathleen.

" It's all right, dear," she told the stone
image ; "I shall be quite close to you. You
call me as soon as you feel you're coming
right again."

The statue remained motionless, as statues
usually do, and Mabel withdrew her head, lay
down, was covered up, and left. The boys went
home. It was the only reasonable thing to do.
It would never have done for Mademoiselle
to become anxious and set the police on their
track. Every one felt that. The shock of
discovering the missing Kathleen, not only in
a dinosaurus's stomach, but, further, in a stone
statue of herself, might well have unhinged
the mind of any constable, to say nothing of
the mind of Mademoiselle, which, being foreign,

MABEL LAY DOWN, WAS COVERED UP, AND LEFT.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 269

would necessarily be a mind more light and easy
to upset. While as for Mabel -

"Well, to look at her as she is now," said
Gerald, " why, it would send any one off their
chump — except us."

" We're different," said Jimmy ; " our chumps
have had to jolly well get used to things. It
would take a lot to upset us now."

" Poor old Cathy ! all the same," said Gerald.

" Yes, of course," said Jimmy.

The sun had died away behind the black
trees and the moon was rising. Mabel, her pre-
posterous length covered with coats, waistcoats,
and trousers laid along it, slept peacefully in
the chill of the evening. Inside the dinosaurus
Kathleen, alive in her marble, slept too. She
had heard Gerald's words — had seen the lighted
matches. She was Kathleen just the same as
ever, only she was Kathleen in a case of marble
that would not let her move. It would not
have let her cry, even if she wanted to.
But she had not wanted to cry. Inside, the
marble was not cold or hard. It seemed, some-
how, to be softly lined with warmth and
pleasantness and safety. Her back did not
ache with stooping. Her limbs were not stiff
with the hours that they had stayed moveless.
Everything was well — better than well. One
had only to wait quietly and quite comfortably
and one would come out of this stone case,
and once more be the Kathleen one had always
been used to being. So she waited happily and

270 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

calmly, and presently waiting changed to not
waiting — to not anything ; and, close held in
the soft inwardness of the marble, she slept
as peacefully and calmly as though she had
been lying in her own bed.

She was awakened by the fact that she was
not lying in her own bed — was not, indeed,
lying at all — by the fact that she was standing
and that her feet had pins and needles in them.
Her arms, too, held out in that odd way, were
stiff and tired. She rubbed her eyes, yawned,
and remembered. She had been a statue, a
statue inside the stone dinosaurus.

" Now I'm alive again," was her instant con-
clusion, "and I'll get out of it."

She sat down, put her feet through the hole
that showed faintly grey in the stone beast's
underside, and as she did so a long, slow lurch
threw her sideways on the stone where she sat.
The dijiosaurus was moving !

" Oh /" said Kathleen inside it, " how dreadful !
It must be moonlight, and it's come alive, like
Gerald said."

It was indeed moving. She could see through
the hole the changing surface of grass and
bracken and moss as it waddled heavily along.
She dared not drop through the hole while
it moved, for fear it should crush her to death
with its gigantic feet. And with that thought
came another : where was Mabel ? Somewhere
— somewhere near $ Suppose one of the great
feet planted itself on some part of Mabel's
inconvenient length ? Mabel being the size

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 271

she was now it would be quite difficult not
to step on some part or other of her, if she
should happen to be in one's way — quite
difficult, however much one tried. And the
dinosaurus would not try. Why should it ?
Kathleen hung in an agony over the round
opening. The huge beast swung from side
to side. It was going faster ; it was no
good, she dared not jump out. Anyhow,
they must be quite away from Mabel by now.
Faster and faster went the dinosaurus. The
floor of its stomach sloped. They were going
downhill. Twigs cracked and broke as it pushed
through a belt of evergreen oaks ; gravel
crunched, ground beneath its stony feet. Then
stone met stone. There was a pause. A
splash ! They were close to water — the lake
where by moonlight Hermes fluttered and Janus
and the dinosaurus swam together. Kathleen
dropped swiftly through the hole on to the
flat marble that edged the basin, rushed side-
ways, and stood panting in the shadow of a
statue's pedestal. Not a moment too soon, for
even as she crouched the monster lizard slipped
heavily into the water, drowning a thousand
smooth, shining lily pads, and swam away
towards the central island.

" Be still, little lady. I leap ! " The voice
came from the pedestal, and next moment
Phcebus had jumped from the pedestal in his
little temple, clearing the steps, and landing
a couple of yards away.

" You are new," said Phcebus over his graceful

THE MONSTER LIZARD SLIPPED HEAVILY INTO THE WATER.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 273

shoulder. " I should not have forgotten you
if once I had seen you."

"I am," said Kathleen, "quite, quite new.
And I didn't know you could talk."

" Why not ? " Phoebus laughed. " You can
talk."

" But I'm alive."

" Am not I ? " he asked.

" Oh, yes, I suppose so," said Kathleen, dis-
tracted, but not afraid ; " only I thought you
had to have the ring on before one could even
see you move."

Phoebus seemed to understand her, which was
rather to his credit, for she had certainly not
expressed herself with clearness.

" Ah ! that's for mortals," he said. " We can
hear and see each other in the few^ moments
when life is ours. That is a part of the beautiful
enchantment."

" But I am a mortal," said Kathleen.

" You are as modest as you are charming,"
said Phoebus Apollo absently ; " the white water
calls me ! I go," and the next moment rings of
liquid silver spread across the lake, widening
and widening, from the spot where the white
joined hands of the Sun-god had struck the
water as he dived.

Kathleen turned and went up the hill towards
the rhododendron bushes. She must find Mabel,
and they must go home at once. If only Mabel
was of a size that one could conveniently take
home with one ! Most likely, at this hour of
enchantments, she was. Kathleen, heartened

18

271 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

by the thought, hurried on. She passed through
the rhododendron bushes, remembered the pointed
painted paper face that had looked out from the
glossy leaves, expected to be frightened — and
wasn't. She found Mabel easily enough, and
much more easily than she would have done
had Mabel been as she wished to find her. For
quite a long way off, in the moonlight, she could
see that long and worm-like form, extended to
its full twelve feet — and covered with coats and
trousers and waistcoats. Mabel looked like a
drain-pipe that has been covered in sacks in
frosty weather. Kathleen touched her long
cheek gently, and she woke.

" What's up ? " she said sleepily.

" It's only me," Kathleen explained.

" How cold your hands are ! " said Mabel.

"Wake up," said Kathleen, "and let's talk."

" Can't we go home now ? I'm awfully tired,
and it's so long since tea-time."

" Youre too long to go home yet," said
Kathleen sadly, and then Mabel remembered.

She lay with closed eyes — then suddenly she
stirred and cried out : —

" Oh ! Cathy, I feel so funny — like one of those
horn snakes when you make it go short to get it
into its box. I am — yes — I know I am "

She was ; and Kathleen, watching her, agreed
that it was exactly like the shortening of a horn
spiral snake between the closing hands of a
child. Mabel's distant feet drew near — Mabel's
long, lean arms grew shorter — Mabel's face was
no longer half a yard long.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 275

" You're coming right — you are ! Oh, I am so
glad ! " cried Kathleen.

" I know I am," said Mabel ; and as she said it
she became once more Mabel, not only in herself.
which, of course, she had been all the time, but
in her outward appearance.

" You are all right. Oh, hooray ! hooray ! I
am so glad!" said Kathleen kindly ; "and now
we'll go home at once, dear."

" Go home ? " said Mabel, slowly sitting up and
staring at Kathleen with her big dark eyes.
" Go home— like that ? "

" Like what? " Kathleen asked impatiently.

" Why, 2/oi6," was Mabel's odd reply.

" I'm all right," said Kathleen. " Come on."

" Do you mean to say you don't know ? " said
Mabel. "Look at yourself — your hands — your
dress — everything."

Kathleen looked at her hands. They were of
marble whiteness. Her dress, too — her shoes,
her stockings, even the ends of her hair. She
was white as new-fallen snow.

" What is it ? " she asked, beginning to tremble.
" What am I all this horrid colour for ? "

" Don't you see ? Oh, Cathy, don't you see ?
You've not come right. You're a statue still."

" I'm not — I'm alive — I'm talking to you."

" I know you are, darling," said Mabel, soothing
her as one soothes a fractious child. " That's
because it's moonlight."

" But you can see I'm alive."

" Of course I can. I've got the ring."

" But I'm all right ; I know I am."

"WHAT IS IT?" SHE ASKED, BEGINNING TO TREMBLE. "WHAT
AM I ALL THIS HORRID COLOUR FOR ? "

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 277

" Don't you see," said Mabel gently, taking her
white marble hand, " you're not all right ? It's
moonlight, and you're a statue, and you've just
come alive with all the other statues. And when
the moon goes down you'll just be a statue
again. That's the difficulty, dear, about our
going home again. You're just a statue still,
only you've come alive with the other marble
things. Where's the dinosaurus ? "

"In his bath," said Kathleen, "and so are all
the other stone beasts."

" Well," said Mabel, trying to look on the
bright side of things, "then we've got one thing,
at any rate, to be thankful for ! "

CHAPTER X

" If," said Kathleen, sitting disconsolate in her
marble, " if I am really a statue come alive, I
wonder you're not afraid of me."

" I've got the ring," said Mabel with decision.
" Cheer up, dear ! you will soon be better. Try
not to think about it."

She spoke as you speak to a child that has cut
its finger, or fallen down on the garden path,
and rises up with grazed knees to which gravel
sticks intimately.

" I know," Kathleen absently answered.

"And I've been thinking," said Mabel brightly,
" we might find out a lot about this magic
place, if the other statues aren't too proud to
talk to us."

" They aren't," Kathleen assured her ; " at
least, Phoebus wasn't. He was most awfully
polite and nice."

" Where is he ? " Mabel asked.

" In the lake — he was," said Kathleen.

" Then let's go down there," said Mabel. " Oh,
Cathy ! it is jolly being your own proper
thickness again." She jumped up, and the
withered ferns and branches that had covered

278

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 279

her long length and had been gathered closely
upon her as she shrank to her proper size
fell, as forest leaves do when sudden storms
tear them. But the white Kathleen did not
move.

The two sat on the grey moonlit grass with
the quiet of the night all about them. The
great park was still as a painted picture ; only
the splash of the fountains and the far-off
whistle of the Western express broke the silence,
which, at the same time, they deepened.

" What cheer, little sister ! " said a voice be-
hind them — a golden voice. They turned quick,
startled heads, as birds, surprised, might turn.
There in the moonlight stood Phoebus, dripping
still from the lake, and smiling at them, very
gentle, very friendly.

" Oh, it's you ! " said Kathleen.

"None other," said Phoebus cheerfully. " Who
is your friend, the earth-child ? "

" This is Mabel," said Kathleen.

Mabel got up and bowed, hesitated, and held
out a hand.

"I am your slave, little lady," said Phcebus,
enclosing it in marble fingers. " But I fail to
understand how you can see us, and why you
do not fear."

Mabel held up the hand that wore the ring.

" Quite sufficient explanation," said Phcebus ;
" but since you have that, why retain your
mottled earthy appearance? Become a statue,
and swim with us in the lake."

" I can't swim," said Mabel evasively.

280 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" Nor yet me," said Kathleen.

" You can," said Phoebus. " All statues that
come to life are proficient in all athletic exercises.
And you, child of the dark eyes and hair like
night, wish yourself a statue and join our
revels."

" I'd rather not, if you will excuse me," said
Mabel cautiously. " You see . . . this ring . . .
you wish for things, and you never know how
long they're going to last. It would be jolly
and all that to be a statue ?iow, but in the
morning I should wish I hadn't."

" Earth-folk often do, they say," mused
Phoebus. " But, child, you seem ignorant of
the powers of your ring. Wish exactly, and
the ring will exactly perform. If you give no
limit of time, strange enchantments woven by
Arithmos the outcast god of numbers will
creep in and spoil the spell. Say thus : ' I
wish that till the dawn I may be a statue of
living marble, even as my child friend, and
that after that time I may be as before, Mabel
of the dark eyes and night-coloured hair."

" Oh, yes, do, it would be so jolly ! " cried
Kathleen. " Do, Mabel ! And if we're both
statues, shall we be afraid of the dinosaurus ? "

"In the world of living marble fear is not,"
said Phoebus. " Are we not brothers, we and
the dinosaurus, brethren alike wrought of
stone and life ? "

" And could I swim if I did ? "

"Swim, and float, and dive — and with the
ladies of Olympus spread the nightly feast, eat

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 281

of the food of the gods, drink their cup, listen
to the song that is undying, and catch the
laughter of immortal lips."

"A feast!" said Kathleen. "Oh, Mabel, do!
You would if you were as hungry as I am."

" But it won't be real food," urged Mabel.

" It will be real to you, as to us," said Phoebus ;
" there is no other realness even in your many-
coloured world."

Still Mabel hesitated. Then she looked at
Kathleens legs and suddenly said : —

"Very well, I will. But first I'll take off my
shoes and stockings. Marble boots look simply
awful — especially the laces. And a marble
stocking that's coming down — and mine do ! "

She had pulled off shoes and stockings and
pinafore.

" Mabel has the sense of beauty," said Phoebus
approvingly. "Speak the spell, child, and I will
lead you to the ladies of Olympus."

Mabel, trembling a little, spoke it, and there
were two little live statues in the moonlit glade.
Tall Phoebus took a hand of each.

" Come — run ! " he cried. And they ran.

"Oh — it is jolly!" Mabel panted. "Look at my
white feet in the grass ! I thought it would feel
stiff to be a statue, but it doesn't."

"There is no stiffness about the immortals."
laughed the Sun-god. "For to-night you are
one of us."

And with that they ran down the slope to the
lake.

"Jump!" he cried, and they jumped, and the

282 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

water splashed up round three white, gleaming
shapes.

" Oh ! I can swim ! " breathed Kathleen.

" So can I," said Mabel.

" Of course you can," said Phoebus. " Now
three times round the lake, and then make for
the island."

Side by side the three swam, Phoebus swim-
ming gently to keep pace with the children.
Their marble clothes did not seem to interfere
at all with their swimming, as your clothes
would if you suddenly jumped into the basin
of the Trafalgar Square fountains and tried to
swim there. And they swam most beautifully,
with that perfect ease and absence of effort or
tiredness which you must have noticed about
your own swimming — in dreams. And it was
the most lovely place to swim in ; the water-
lilies, whose long, snaky stalks are so incon-
venient to ordinary swimmers, did not in the
least interfere with the movements of marble
arms and legs. The moon was high in the clear
sky-dome. The weeping willows, cypresses,
temples, terraces, banks of trees and shrubs,
and the wonderful old house, all added to the
romantic charm of the scene.

" This is the nicest thing the ring has brought
us yet," said Mabel, through a languid but perfect
side-stroke.

" I thought you'd enjoy it," said Phcebus
kindly ; " now once more round, and then the
island."

They landed on the island amid a fringe of

284 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

rushes, yarrow, willow-herb, loose-strife, and a
few late, scented, powdery, creamy heads of
meadow-sweet. The island was bigger than it
looked from the bank, and it seemed covered
with trees and shrubs. But when, Phoebus
leading the way, they went into the shadow of
these, they perceived that beyond the trees lay
a light, much nearer to them than the other
side of the island could possibly be. And almost
at once they were through the belt of trees, and
could see where the light came from. The trees
they had just passed among made a dark circle
round a big cleared space, standing up thick and
dark, like a crowd round a football field, as
Kathleen remarked.

First came a wide, smooth ring of lawn, then
marble steps going down to a round pool,
where there were no water-lilies, only gold and
silver fish that darted here and there like flashes
of quicksilver and dark flames. And the en-
closed space of water and marble and grass was
lighted with a clear, white, radiant light, seven
times stronger than the whitest moonlight, and
in the still waters of the pool seven moons lay
reflected. One could see that they were only
reflections by the way their shape broke and
changed as the gold and silver fish rippled
the water with moving fin and tail that
steered.

The girls looked up at the sky, almost expect-
ing to see seven moons there. But no, the old
moon shone alone, as she had always shone on
them.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 285

" There are seven moons," said Mabel blankly,
and pointed, which is not manners.

"Of course," said Phoebus kindly; "everything
in our world is seven times as much so as in
yours."

" But there aren't seven of you," said Mabel.

" No, but I am seven times as much," said the
Sun God. " You see, there's numbers, and there's
quantity, to say nothing of quality. You see
that, I'm sure."

" Not quite," said Kathleen.

" Explanations always weary me," Phcebus
interrupted. " Shall we join the ladies V "

On the further side of the pool was a large
group, so white, that it seemed to. make a great
white hole in the trees. Some twenty or thirty
figures there were in the group — all statues and
all alive. Some were dipping their white feet
among the gold and silver fish, and sending
ripples across the faces of the seven moons.
Some were pelting each other with roses — roses
so sweet that the girls could smell them even
across the pool. Others were holding hands
and dancing in a ring, and two were sitting on
the steps playing cat's-cradle — which is a very
ancient game indeed — with a thread of white
m arble.

As the new-comers advanced a shout of greet-
ing and gay laughter went up.

" Late again, Phcebus ! " some one called out.
And another : " Did one of your horses cast a
shoe ? " And yet another called out something
about laurels.

286 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" I bring two guests," said Phoebus, and
instantly the statues crowded round, stroking
the girls' hair, patting their cheeks, and calling
them the prettiest love-names.

" Are the wreaths ready, Hebe ? " the tallest
and most splendid of the ladies called out.
" Make two more ! "

And almost directly Hebe came down the
steps, her round arms hung thick with rose-
wreaths. There was one for each marble
head.

Every one now looked seven times more
beautiful than before, which, in the case of the
gods and goddesses, is saying a good deal. The
children remembered how at the raspberry
vinegar feast Mademoiselle had said that gods
and goddesses always wore wreaths for meals.

Hebe herself arranged the roses on the girls'
heads — and Aphrodite Urania, the dearest lady
in the world, with a voice like mother's at those
moments when you love her most, took them
by the hands and said : —

" Come, we must get the feast ready. Eros —
Psyche — Hebe — Ganymede — all you young
people can arrange the fruit."

" I don't see any fruit," said Kathleen, as four
slender forms disengaged themselves from the
white crowd and came toward them.

"You will though," said Eros, a really nice
boy, as the girls instantly agreed ; " you've only
got to pick it."

" Like this," said Psyche, lifting her marble
arms to a willow branch. She reached out her

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 287

hand to the children — it held a ripe pome-
granate.

" I see," said Mabel. " You just " She laid

her fingers to the willow branch and the firm
softness of a big peach was within them.

" Yes, just that," laughed Psyche, who was a
darling, as any one could see.

After this Hebe gathered a few silver baskets
from a convenient alder, and the four picked
fruit industriously. Meanwhile the elder

statues were busy plucking golden goblets
and jugs and dishes from the branches of
ash-trees and young oaks and filling them
with everything nice to eat and drink that
any one could possibly want, and these were
spread on the steps. It was a celestial picnic.
Then everyone sat or lay down and the feast
began. And oh ! the taste of the food served
on those dishes, the sweet wonder of the drink
that melted from those gold cups on the white
lips of the company ! And the fruit — there is
no fruit like it grown on earth, just as there
is no laughter like the laughter of those lips,
no songs like the songs that stirred the silence
of that night of wonder.

" Oh ! " cried Kathleen, and through her
fingers the juice of her third peach fell like
tears on the marble steps. "I do wish the boys
were here ! "

"I do wonder what they're doing," said
Mabel.

" At this moment," said Hermes, who had just
made a wide ring of flight, as a pigeon does,

IT WAS A CELESTIAL PICNIC.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 289

and come back into the circle — "at this moment
they are wandering desolately near the home
of the dinosaurus, having escaped from their
home by a window, in search of you. They
fear that you have perished, and they would
weep if they did not know that tears do not
become a man, however youthful."

Kathleen stood up and brushed the crumbs
of ambrosia from her marble lap.

" Thank you all very much," she said. " It was
very kind of you to have us, and we've enjoyed
ourselves very much, but I think we ought to
go now, please."

"If it is anxiety about your brothers," said
Phoebus obligingly, "it is the easiest thing in
the world for them to join you. Lend me
your ring a moment."

He took it from Kathleen's half-reluctant
hand, dipped it in the reflection of one of the
seven moons, and gave it back. She clutched it.
"Now," said the Sun-god, "wish for them that
which Mabel wished for herself. Say "

" I know," Kathleen interrupted. " I wish that
the boys may be statues of living marble like
Mabel and me till dawn, and afterwards be like
they are now/'

"If you hadn't interrupted," said Phcebus—
"but there, we can't expect old heads on
shoulders of young marble. You should have
wished them here — and — but no matter.
Hermes, old chap, cut across and fetch them,
and explain things as you come."

He dipped the ring again in one of the

19

290 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

reflected moons before he gave it back to
Kathleen.

" There," he said, " now it's washed clean
ready for the next magic."

" It is not our custom to question guests," said
Hera the queen, turning her great eyes on the
children ; " but that ring excites, I am sure, the
interest of us all."

" It is the ring," said Phoebus.

" That, of course," said Hera ; " but if it were
not inhospitable to ask questions I should ask,
How came it into the hands of these earth-
children ? "

"That," said Phoebus, "is a long tale. After
the feast the story, and after the story the song."

Hermes seemed to have " explained every-
thing " quite fully ; for when Gerald and Jimmy
in marble whiteness arrived, each clinging to
one of the god's winged feet, and so borne
through the air, they were certainly quite at
ease. They made their best bows to the god-
desses and took their places as unembarrassed
as though they had had Olympian suppers every
night of their lives. Hebe had woven wreaths
of roses ready for them, and as Kathleen
watched them eating and drinking, perfectly
at home in their marble, she was very glad
that amid the welling springs of immortal
peach- juice she had not forgotten her brothers.

"And now," said Hera, when the boys had
been supplied with everything they could
possibly desire, and more than they could eat —
"now for the story."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 291

" Yes," said Mabel intensely ; and Kathleen
said, " Oh yes ; now for the story. How
splendid ! "

" The story," said Phoebus unexpectedly, " will
be told by our guests."

" Oh no ! " said Kathleen, shrinking.

" The lads, maybe, are bolder," said Zeus the
king, taking off his rose- wreath, which was
a little tight, and rubbing his compressed
ears.

" I really can't," said Gerald ; " besides, I don't
know any stories."

" Nor yet me," said Jimmy.

" It's the story of how we got the ring that
they want," said Mabel in a hurry. " I'll tell it
if you like. Once upon a time there was a little
girl called Mabel," she added yet more hastily,
and went on with the tale — all the tale of the
enchanted castle, or almost all, that you have
read in these pages. The marble Olympians
listened enchanted — almost as enchanted as the
castle itself, and the soft moonlit moments fell
past like pearls dropping into a deep pool.

" And so," Mabel ended abruptly, " Kathleen
wished for the boys and the Lord Hermes
fetched them and here we all are."

A burst of interested comment and question
blossomed out round the end of the story,
suddenly broken off short by Mabel.

" But," said she, brushing it aside, as it grew
thinner, " now we want you to tell us.*'

"To tell you ?

■" How you come to be alive, and how you

292 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

know about the ring — and everything you do
know."

"Everything I know?" Phoebus laughed — it
was to him that she had spoken — and not his
lips only but all the white lips curled in laughter.
" The span of your life, my earth^child, would
not contain the words I should speak, to tell you
all I know."

" Well, about the ring anyhow, and how you
come alive," said Gerald; "you see, it's very
puzzling to us."

" Tell them, Phoebus," said the dearest lady in
the world ; " don't tease the children."

So Phoebus, leaning back against a heap of
leopard-skins that Dionysus had lavishly
plucked from a spruce fir, told.

" All statues," he said, " can come alive when
the moon shines, if they so choose. But statues
that are placed in ugly cities do not choose.
Why should they weary themselves with the
contemplation of the hideous ? "

" Quite so," said Gerald politely, to fill the
pause.

"In your beautiful temples," the Sun-god
went on, " the images of your priests and of
your warriors who lie cross-legged on their
tombs come alive and walk in their marble
about their temples, and through the woods
and fields. But only on one night in all the
year can any see them. You have beheld us
because you held the ring, and are of one
brotherhood with us in your marble, but on
that one night all may behold us."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 293

" And when is that ? " Gerald asked, again
polite, in a pause.

" At the festival of the harvest," said Phoebus.
" On that night as the moon rises it strikes one
beam of perfect light on to the altar in certain
temples. One of these temples is in Hellas,
buried under the fall of a mountain which Zeus,
being angry, hurled down upon it. One is in
this land ; it is in this great garden."

" Then," said Gerald, much interested, " if we
were to come up to that temple on that night,
we could see you, even without being statues or
having the ring?"

" Even so," said Phoebus. " More, any ques-
tion asked by a mortal we are on that night
bound to answer."

" And the night is — when ? "

"Ah!" said Phoebus, and laughed. "Wouldn't
you like to know ! "

Then the great marble King of the Gods
yawned, stroked his long beard, and said:
"Enough of stories, Phoebus. Tune your lyre."

" But the ring," said Mabel in a whisper, as
the Sun-god tuned the white strings of a sort
of marble harp that lay at his feet—" about how
you know all about the ring ? "

" Presently," the Sun-god whispered back.
" Zeus must be obeyed ; but ask me again before
dawn, and I will tell you all I know of it." Mabel
drew back, and leaned against the comfortable
knees of one Demeter — Kathleen and Psyche sat
holding hands. Gerald and Jimmy lay at full
length, chins on elbows, gazing at the Sun-god ;

294 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

and even as he held the lyre, before ever his
fingers began to sweep the strings, the spirit of
music hung in the air, enchanting, enslaving,
silencing all thought but the thought of itself,
all desire but the desire to listen to it.

Then Phoebus struck the strings and softly
plucked melody from them, and all the beautiful
dreams of all the world came fluttering close
with wings like doves' wings ; and all the lovely
thoughts that sometimes hover near, but not so
near that you can catch them, now came home
as to their nests in the hearts of those who
listened. And those who listened forgot time and
space, and how to be sad, and how to be
naughty, and it seemed that the whole world
lay like a magic apple in the hand of each
listener, and that the whole world was good
and beautiful.

And then, suddenly, the spell was shattered.
Phoebus struck a broken chord, followed by
an instant of silence ; then he sprang up, cry-
ing, " The dawn ! the dawn ! To your pedestals,
gods ! "

In an instant the whole crowd of beautiful
marble people had leaped to its feet, had rushed
through the belt of wood that cracked and
rustled as they went, and the children heard
them splash in the water beyond. They heard,
too, the gurgling breathing of a great beast, and
knew that the dinosaurus, too, was returning to
his own place.

Only Hermes had time, since one flies more
swiftly than one swims, to hover above them

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 295

for one moment, and to whisper with a mis-
chievous laugh : —

" In fourteen days from now, at the Temple of
Strange Stones."

"What's the secret of the ring?" gasped
Mabel.

"The ring is the heart of the magic," said
Hermes. "Ask at the moonrise on the fourteenth
day, and you shall know all."

With that he waved the snowy caduceus and
rose in the air supported by his winged feet.
And as he went the seven reflected moons
died out and a chill wind began to blow, a
grey light grew and grew, the birds stirred and
twittered, and the marble slipped away from
the children like a skin that shrivels in fire, and
they were statues no more, but flesh and blood
children as they used to be, standing knee-deep
in brambles and long coarse grass. There was
no smooth lawn, no marble steps, no seven-
mooned fish-pond. The dew lay thick on the
grass and the brambles, and it was very cold.

" We ought to have gone with them," said
Mabel with chattering teeth. " We can't swim
now we're not marble. And I suppose this is
the island ? "

It was — and they couldn't swim.

They knew it. One always knows those sort
of things somehow without trying. For instance,
you know perfectly that you can't fly. There
are some things that there is no mistake about.

The dawn grew brighter and the outlook more
black every moment.

296 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" There isn't a boat, I suppose ? " Jimmy asked.

" No," said Mabel, " not on this side of the
lake ; there's one in the boat-house, of course —
if you could swim there."

"You know I can't," said Jimmy.

" Can't any one think of anything ? " Gerald
asked, shivering.

" When they find we've disappeared they'll drag
all the water for miles round," said Jimmy hope-
fully, " in case we've fallen in and sunk to the
bottom. When they come to drag this we can
yell and be rescued."

" Yes, dear, that will be nice," was Gerald's
bitter comment.

" Don't be so disagreeable," said Mabel with a
tone so strangely cheerful that the rest stared at
her in amazement.

" The ring," she said. " Of course we've only
got to wish ourselves home with it. Phoebus
washed it in the moon ready for the next wish."

" You didn't tell as about that," said Gerald in
accents of perfect good temper. " Never mind.
Where is the ring ? "

" You had it," Mabel reminded Kathleen.

"I know I had," said that child in stricken
tones, " but I gave it to Psyche to look at —
and — and she's got it on her finger ! "

Every one tried not to be angry with
Kathleen. All partly succeeded.

" If we ever get off this beastly island," said
Gerald, " I suppose you can find Psyche's statue
and get it off again ? "

" No I can't," Mabel moaned. " I don't know

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 297

where the statue is. I've never seen it. It may
be in Hellas, wherever that is — or anywhere,
for anything / know."'

No one had anything kind to say, and it is
pleasant to record that nobody said anything.
And now it was grey daylight, and the sky to
the north was flushing in pale pink and
lavender.

The boys stood moodily, hands in pockets.
Mabel and Kathleen seemed to find it impossible
not to cling together, and all about their legs
the long grass was icy with dew.

A faint sniff and a caught breath broke the
silence.

" Now, look here," said Gerald briskly, " I
won't have it. Do you hear? Snivelling's no
good at all. No, I'm not a pig. It's for your
own good. Let's make a tour of the island.
Perhaps there's a boat hidden somewhere
among the overhanging boughs."

" How could there be ? " Mabel asked.

" Some one might have left it there, I sup-
pose," said Gerald.

" But how would they have got off the
island ? "

"In another boat, of course," said Gerald;
" come on."

Downheartedly, and quite sure that there
wasn't and couldn't be any boat, the four
children started to explore the island. How
often each one of them had dreamed of islands,
how often wished to be stranded on one! Well,
now they were. Reality is sometimes quite

298 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

different from dreams, arid not half so nice. It
was worst of all for Mabel, whose shoes and
stockings were far away on the mainland. The
coarse grass and brambles were very cruel to
bare legs and feet.

They stumbled through the wood to the edge
of the water, but it was impossible to keep close
to the edge of the island, the branches grew
too thickly. There was a narrow, grassy path
that wound in and out among the trees, and
this they followed, dejected and mournful.
Every moment made it less possible for them to
hope to get back to the school-house unnoticed.
And if they were missed and beds found in their
present unslept-in state— well, there would be a
row of some sort, and, as Gerald said, " Farewell
to liberty ! "

" Of course we can get off all right," said
Gerald. " Just all shout when we see a gardener
or a keeper on the mainland. But if we do,
concealment is at an end and all is absolutely
up !

" Yes," said everyone gloomily.

"Come, buck up!" said Gerald, the spirit of the
born general beginning to reawaken in him.
" We shall get out of this scrape all right, as
we've got out of others; you know we shall.
See, the sun's coming out. You feel all right
and jolly now, don't you ? "

" Yes, oh yes ! " said everyone, in tones of
unmixed misery.

The sun was now risen, and through a deep
cleft in the hills it sent a strong shaft of light

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 299

straight at the island. The yellow light, almost
level, struck through the stems of the trees and
dazzled the children's eyes. This, with the fact
that he was not looking where he was going,
as Jimmy did not fail to point out later, was
enough to account for what now happened to
Gerald, who was leading the melancholy little
procession. He stumbled, clutched at a tree-
trunk, missed his clutch, and disappeared, with
a yell and a clatter ; and Mabel, who came next,
only pulled herself up just in time not to fall
down a steep flight of moss-grown steps that
seemed to open suddenly in the ground at her
feet.

"Oh, Gerald!" she called down the steps; '-are
you hurt ? "

"No," said Gerald, out of sight and crossly,
for he was hurt, rather severely ; " it's steps, and
there's a passage."

" There always is," said Jimmy.

" I knew there was a passage," said Mabel ;
" it goes under the water and comes out at the
Temple of Flora. Even the gardeners know
that, but they won't go down, for fear of
snakes."

" Then we can get out that way — I do think
you might have said so," Gerald's voice came up
to say.

" I didn't think of it," said Mabel. " At least

And I suppose it goes past the place where

the Ugly-Wugly found its good hotel."

"I'm not going," said Kathleen positively, "not
in the dark, I'm not. So I tell you ! "

300 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" Very well, baby," said Gerald sternly, and
his head appeared from below very suddenly
through interlacing brambles. " No one asked
you to go in the dark. We'll leave you here if
you like, and return and rescue you with a boat.
Jimmy, the bicycle lamp ! " He reached up a
hand for it.

Jimmy produced from his bosom, the place
where lamps are always kept in fairy stories —
see Aladdin and others — a bicycle lamp.

" We brought it," he explained, " so as not to
break our shins over bits of long Mabel among
the rhododendrons."

"Now," said Gerald very firmly, striking a
match and opening the thick, rounded glass
front of the bicycle lamp, " I don't know what
the rest of you are going to do, but I'm going
down these steps and along this passage. If we
find the good hotel — well, a good hotel never
hurt any one yet."

"It's no good, you know," said Jimmy weakly ;
"you know jolly well you can't get out of that
Temple of Flora door, even if you get to it."

" I dont know," said Gerald, still brisk and
commander-like; "there's a secret spring inside
that door most likely. We hadn't a lamp last
time to look for it, remember."

" If there's one thing I do hate it's under-
groundness," said Mabel.

" You re not a coward," said Gerald, with what
is known as diplomacy. " You re brave, Mabel.
Don't I know it ! You hold Jimmy's hand and
I'll hold Cathy's. Now then."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 301

" I won't have my hand held," said Jimmy, of
course. " I'm not a kid."

"Well, Cathy will. Poor little Cathy! Nice
brother Jerry'll hold poor Cathy's hand."

Geralds bitter sarcasm missed fire here, for
Cathy gratefully caught the hand he held out in
mockery. She was too miserable to read his
mood, as she mostly did. " Oh, thank you, Jerry
dear," she said gratefully; "you<a?-e a dear, and I
ivill try not to be frightened." And for quite a
minute Gerald shamedly felt that he had not
been quite, quite kind.

So now, leaving the growing goldness of the
sunrise, the four went down the stone steps
that led to the underground and underwater
passage, and everything seemed to grow dark
and then to grow into a poor pretence of light
again, as the splendour of dawn gave place to
the small dogged lighting of the bicycle lamp.
The steps did indeed lead to a passage, the
beginnings of it choked with the drifted dead
leaves of many old autumns. But presently the
passage took a turn, there were more steps,
down, down, and then the passage was empty
and straight — lined above and below and on
each side with slabs of marble, very clear and
clean. Gerald held Cathy's hand with more of
kindness and less of exasperation than he had
supposed possible.

And Cathy, on her part, was surprised to find
it possible to be so much less frightened than
she expected.

The flame of the bull'seye threw ahead a soft

302 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

circle of misty light — the children followed it
silently. Till, silently and suddenly, the light
of the bnll's-eye behaved as the flame of a candle
does when you take it out into the sunlight to
light a bonfire, or explode a train of gunpowder,
or what not. Because now, with feelings mixed
indeed, of wonder, and interest, and awe, but no
fear, the children found themselves in a great
hall, whose arched roof was held up by two
rows of round pillars, and whose every corner
was filled with a soft, searching, lovely light,
filling every cranny, as water fills the rocky
secrecies of hidden sea-caves.

" How beautiful ! " Kathleen whispered,
breathing hard into the tickled ear of her
brother, and Mabel caught the hand of Jimmy
and whispered, " I must hold your hand — I
must hold on to something silly, or I shan't
believe it's real."

For this hall in which the children found them-
selves was the most beautiful place in the world.
I won't describe it, because it does not look the
same to any two people, and you wouldn't
understand me if I tried to tell you how it
looked to any one of these four. But to each
it seemed the most perfect thing possible. I
will only say that all round it were great
arches. Kathleen saw them as Moorish, Mabel
as Tudor, Gerald as Norman, and Jimmy as
Churchwarden Gothic. (If you don't know
what these are, ask your uncle who collects
brasses, and he will explain, or perhaps Mr.
Millar will draw the different kinds of arches

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 303

for you.) And through these arches one could
see many things — oh ! but many things.
Through one appeared an olive garden, and
in it two lovers who held each other's hands,
under an Italian moon ; through another a wild
sea, and a ship to whom the wild, racing sea
was slave. A third showed a king on his
throne, his courtiers obsequious about him ;
and yet a fourth showed a really good hotel,
with the respectable Ugly-Wugly sunning
himself on the front doorsteps. There was a
mother, bending over a wooden cradle. There
was an artist gazing entranced on the picture
his wet brush seemed to have that moment
completed, a general dying on a field where
Victory had planted the standard he loved, and
these things were not pictures, but the truest
truths, alive, and, as any one could see, immortal.

Many other pictures there were that these
arches framed. And all showed some moment
when life had sprung to fire and flower — the
best that the soul of man could ask or man's
destiny grant. And the really good hotel had
its place here too, because there are some souls
that ask no higher thing of life than " a really
good hotel."

" Oh, I am glad we came ; I am, I am ! " Kath-
leen murmured, and held fast to her brother's
hand.

They went slowly up the hall, the ineffectual
bull'seye, held by Jimmy, very crooked indeed,
showing almost as a shadow in this big,
glorious light.

304 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

And then, when the hall's end was almost
reached, the children saw where the light came
from. It glowed and spread itself from one
place, and in that place stood the one statue
that Mahel " did not know where to find " — the
statue of Psyche. They went on, slowly, quite
happy, quite bewildered. And when they came
close to Psyche they saw that on her raised
hand the ring showed dark.

Gerald let go Kathleen's hand, put his foot
on the pediment, his knee on the pedestal. He
stood up, dark and human, beside the white girl
with the butterfly wings.

"I do hope you don't mind," he said, and
drew the ring off very gently. Then, as he
dropped to the ground, " Not here," he said.
" I don't know why, but not here."

And they all passed behind the white Psyche,
and once more the bicycle lamp seemed suddenly
to come to life again as Gerald held it in front
of him, to be the pioneer in the dark passage

that led from the Hall of , but they did not

know, then, what it was the Hall of.

Then, as the twisting passage shut in on them
with a darkness that pressed close against the
little light of the bicycle lamp, Kathleen said,
" Give me the ring. I know exactly what to
say."

Gerald gave it with not extreme readiness.

" I wish," said Kathleen slowly, " that no one
at home may know that we've been out to-night,
and I wish we were safe in our own beds, un-
dressed, and in our nightgowns, and asleep."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 305

And the next thing any of them knew, it was
good, strong, ordinary daylight — not just sun-
rise, but the kind of daylight you are used to
being called in, and all were in their own beds.
Kathleen had framed the wish most sensibly.
The only mistake had been in saying " in our
own beds," because, of course, Mabel's own bed
was at Yalding Towers, and to this day Mabel's
drab-haired aunt cannot understand how Mabel,
who was staying the night with that child in the
town she was so taken up with, hadn't come home
at eleven, when the aunt locked up, and yet
she was in her bed in the morning. For though
not a clever woman, she was not stupid enough
to be able to believe any one of the eleven fancy
explanations which the distracted Mabel offered
in the course of the morning. The first (which
makes twelve) of these explanations was The
Truth, and of course the aunt was far too
clever to believe That !

20

CHAPTER XI

It was show-clay at Yalding Castle, and it
seemed good to the children to go and visit
Mabel, and, as Gerald put it, to mingle un-
suspected with the crowd ; to gloat over all
the things which they knew and which the
crowd didn't know about the castle and the
sliding panels, the magic ring and the statues
that came alive. Perhaps one of the pleasantest
things about magic happenings is the feeling
which they give you of knowing what other
people not only don't know but wouldn't, so to
speak, believe if they did.

On the white road outside the gates of the
castle was a dark spattering of breaks and
wagonettes and dog-carts. Three or four waiting
motor-cars puffed fatly where they stood, and
bicycles sprawled in heaps along the grassy
hollow by the red brick Avail. And the people
who had been brought to the castle by the
breaks and wagonettes, and dog-carts and bicycles
and motors, as well as those who had walked
there on their own unaided feet, were scat-
tered about the grounds, or being shown over
those parts of the castle which were, on this
one day of the week, thrown open to visitors.

306

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 307

There were more visitors than usual to-day
because it had somehow been whispered about
that Lord Yalding was down, and that the
holland covers were to be taken off the state
furniture, so that a rich American who wished
to rent the castle, to live in, might see the
place in all its glory.

It certainly did look very splendid. The
embroidered satin, gilded leather and tapestry
of the chairs, which had been hidden by
brown holland, gave to the rooms a pleasant
air of being lived in. There were flowering
plants and pots of roses here and there on
tables or window-ledges. Mabel's aunt prided
herself on her tasteful touch in the home, and
had studied the arrangement of flowers in a
series of articles in Home Drivel called " How to
Make Home High-class on Ninepence a Week."

The great crystal chandeliers, released from
the bags that at ordinary times shrouded
them, gleamed with grey and purple splendour.
The brown linen sheets had been taken off the
state beds, and the red ropes that usually kept
the low crowd in its proper place had been
rolled up and hidden away.

; ' It's exactly as if we were calling on the
family," said the grocer's daughter from Salis-
bury to her friend who was in the millinery.

" If the Yankee doesn't take it, what do you
say to you and me setting up here when we get
spliced ? " the draper's assistant asked his sweet-
heart. And she said : ki Oh, Reggie, how can
you ! you are too funny."

308 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

All the afternoon the crowd in its smart
holiday clothes, pink blouses, and light-
coloured suits, flowery hats, and scarves beyond
description passed through and through the
dark hall, the magnificent drawing-rooms and
boudoirs and picture-galleries. The chattering
crowd was awed into something like quiet by
the calm, stately bedchambers, where men had
been born, and died ; where royal guests had
lain in long-ago summer nights, with big bow-
pots of elder-flowers set on the hearth to ward
off fever and evil spells. The terrace, where in
old days dames in ruffs had sniffed the sweet-
brier and southernwood of the borders below,
and ladies, bright with rouge and powder and
brocade, had walked in the swing of their hooped
skirts — the terrace now echoed to the sound of
brown boots, and the tap-tap of high-heeled
shoes at two and eleven three, and high
laughter and chattering voices that said nothing
that the children wanted to hear. These spoiled
for them the quiet of the enchanted castle,
and outraged the peace of the garden of
enchantments.

" It isn't such a lark after all," Gerald ad-
mitted, as from the window of the stone
summer-house at the end of the terrace they
watched the loud colours and heard the loud
laughter. "I do hate to see all these people in
our garden."

" I said that to that nice bailiff -man this
morning," said Mabel, setting herself on the
stone floor, " and he said it wasn't much to let

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 309

them come once a week. He said Lord Yalding
ought to let them come when they liked — said
he would if he lived there."

" That's all he knows ! " said Jimmy. " Did he
say anything else ? "

" Lots," said Mabel. "I do like him ! I told
him "

" You didn't ! "

" Yes. I told him lots about our adventures.
The humble bailiff is a beautiful listener."

" We shall be locked up for beautiful lunatics
if you let your jaw get the better of you, my
Mabel child."

" Not us ! " said Mabel. " I told it— you know
the way — every word true, and yet so that
nobody believes any of it. When I'd quite
done he said I'd got a real littery talent, and I
promised to put his name on the beginning
of the first book I write when I grow up."

" You don't know his name," said Kathleen.
" Let's do something with the ring."

" Imposs ! " said Gerald. " I forgot to tell you,
but I met Mademoiselle when I went back for
my garters — and she's coming to meet us and
walk back with us."

" What did you say ? "

" I said," said Gerald deliberately, " that it was
very kind of her. And so it was. Us not
wanting her doesn't make it not kind her
coming "

" It may be kind, but it's sickening too," said
Mabel, " because now I suppose we shall have
to stick here and wait for her ; and I promised

310 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

we'd meet the bailiff -man. He's going to bring
things in a basket and have a picnic-tea
with us."

" Where ? "

" Beyond the dinosaurus. He said he'd tell
me all about the anteddy-something animals — it
means before Noah's Ark ; there are lots
besides the dinosaurus — in return for me telling
him my agreeable fictions. Yes, he called them
that."

"When?"

" As soon as the gates shut. That's five."

" We might take Mademoiselle along," sug-
gested Gerald.

" She'd be too proud to have tea with a bailiff,
I expect ; you never know how grown-ups will
take the simplest things." It was Kathleen who
said this.

" Well, I'll tell you what," said Gerald, lazily
turning on the stone bench. " You all go along,
and meet your bailiff. A picnic's a picnic. And
I'll wait for Mademoiselle."

Mabel remarked joyously that this was jolly
decent of Gerald, to which he modestly replied :
" Oh, rot ! "

Jimmy added that Gerald rather liked sucking-
up to people.

" Little boys don't understand diplomacy," said
Gerald calmly ; " sucking-up is simply silly.
But it's better to be good than pretty and "

" How do you know ? " Jimmy asked.

"And," his brother went on, "you never know
when a grown-up may come in useful. Besides,

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 311

they like it. You must give them some little
pleasures. Think how awful it must be to be
old. My hat ! "

"I hope / shan't be an old maid," said
Kathleen.

" I don't mean to be," said Mabel briskly.
" I'd rather marry a travelling tinker."

" It would be rather nice," Kathleen mused,
" to marry the Gipsy King and go about in a
caravan telling fortunes and hung round with
baskets and brooms."

" Oh, if I could choose," said Mabel, " of course
I'd marry a brigand, and live in his mountain
fastnesses, and be kind to his captives and help
them to escape and "

"You'll be a real treasure to your husband,"
said Gerald.

" Yes," said Kathleen, " or a sailor would be
nice. You'd watch for his ship coming home
and set the lamp in the dormer window to light
him home through the storm ; and when he was
drowned at sea you'd be most frightfully sorry,
and go every day to lay flowers on his daisied
grave."

" Yes," Mabel hastened to say, " or a soldier,
and then you'd go to the wars with short petti-
coats and a cocked hat and a barrel round your
neck like a St. Bernard dog. There's a picture
of a soldier's wife on a song auntie's got. It's
called ' The Veevandyear.' "

" When I marry " Kathleen quickly said.

" When / marry," said Gerald, " I'll marry a
dumb girl, or else get the ring to make her so

312 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

that she can't speak unless she's spoken to. Let's
have a squint."

He applied his eye to the stone lattice.

" They're moving off," he said. " Those pink
and purple hats are nodding off in the distant
prospect ; and the funny little man with the
beard like a goat is going a different way from
every one else — the gardeners will have to head
him off. I don't see Mademoiselle, though.
The rest of you had better bunk. It doesn't do
to run any risks with picnics. The deserted
hero of our tale, alone and unsupported, urged
on his brave followers to pursue the commissariat
waggons, he himself remaining at the post of
danger and difficulty, because he was born to
stand on burning decks whence all but he had
fled, and to lead forlorn hopes when despaired
of by the human race ! "

" I think I'll marry a dumb husband," said
Mabel, " and there shan't be any heroes in my
books when I write them, only a heroine.
Come on, Cathy."

Coming out of that cool, shadowy summer-
house into the sunshine was like stepping into
an oven, and the stone of the terrace was burn-
ing to the children's feet.

" I know now what a cat on hot bricks feels
like," said Jimmy.

The antediluvian animals are set in a beech-
wood on a slope at least half a mile across the
park from the castle. The grandfather of the
present Lord Yalding had them set there in the
middle of last century, in the great days of the

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 313

late Prince Consort, the Exhibition of 1851, Sir
Joseph Paxton, and the Crystal Palace. Their
stone flanks, their wide, ungainly wings, their
lozenged crocodile-like backs show grey through
the trees a long way off.

Most people think that noon is the hottest
time of the day. They are wrong. A cloudless
sky gets hotter and hotter all the afternoon,
and reaches its very hottest at five. I am sure
you must all have noticed this when you are
going out to tea anywhere in your best clothes,
especially if your clothes are starched and you
happen to have a rather long and shadeless
walk.

Kathleen, Mabel, and Jimmy got hotter and
hotter, and went more and more slowly. They
had almost reached that stage of resentment
and discomfort when one " wishes one hadn't
come " before they saw, below the edge of the
beech-wood, the white waved handkerchief of
the bailiff.

That banner, eloquent of tea, shade, and being
able to sit down, put new heart into them. They
mended their pace, and a final desperate run
landed them among the drifted coppery leaves
and bare grey and green roots of the beech -
Wood.

"Oh, glory!" said Jimmy, throwing himself
down. "How do you do?"

The bailiff looked very nice, the girls thought.
He was not wearing his velveteens, but a grey
flannel suit that an Earl need not have scorned ;
and his straw hat would have done no discredit

3U THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

to a Duke ; and a Prince could not have worn a
prettier green tie. He welcomed the children
warmly. And there were two baskets dumped
heavy and promising among the beech-leaves.

He was a man of tact. The hot, instructive
tour of the stone antediluvians, which had
loomed with ever-lessening charm before the
children, was not even mentioned.

" You must be desert-dry," he said, " and you'll
be hungry, too, when you've done being thirsty.
I put on the kettle as soon as I discerned the
form of my fair romancer in the extreme
offing."

The kettle introduced itself with puffings and
babblings from the hollow between two grey
roots where it sat on a spirit-lamp.

" Take off your shoes and stockings, won't
you ? " said the bailiff in matter-of-course tones,
just as old ladies ask each other to take off their
bonnets ; " there's a little baby canal just over
the ridge."

The joys of dipping one's feet in cool running
water after a hot walk have yet to be described.
I could write pages about them. There was a
mill-stream when I was young with little fishes
in it, and dropped leaves that spun round, and
willows and alders that leaned over it and kept
it cool, and — but this is not the story of my
life.

When they came back, on rested, damp, pink
feet, tea was made and poured out, delicious tea,
with as much milk as ever you wanted, out of a
beer bottle with a screw top, and cakes, and

THE JOYS OF DIPPING ONES FEET IN COOL RUNNING WATER.

316 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

gingerbread, and plums, and a big melon with a
lump of ice in its heart — a tea for the gods !

This thought must have come to Jimmy, for
he said suddenly, removing his face from inside
a wide-bitten crescent of melon-rind : —

" Your feast's as good as the feast of the
Immortals, almost."

" Explain your recondite allusion," said the
grey-flanneled host ; and Jimmy, understand-
ing him to say, " What do you mean ? " replied
with the whole tale of that wonderful night
when the statues came alive, and a banquet of
unearthly splendour and deliciousness was
plucked by marble hands from the trees of
the lake island.

When he had done the bailiff said : —

"Did you get all this out of a book ? "

" No," said Jimmy, " it happened."

"You are an imaginative set of young
dreamers, aren't you ? " the bailiff asked, hand-
ing the plums to Kathleen, who smiled, friendly
but embarrassed. Why couldn't Jimmy have
held his tongue?

" No, we're not," said that indiscreet one
obstinately ; " everything I've told you did
happen, and so did the things Mabel told
you."

The bailiff looked a little uncomfortable. "All
right, old chap," lie said. And there was a short,
uneasy silence.

" Look here," said Jimmy, who seemed for
once to have got the bit between his teeth, " do
you believe me or not ? "

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 317

" Don't be silly, Jimmy ! " Kathleen whispered.

" Because, if you don't I'll make you believe."

" Don't ! " said Mabel and Kathleen together.

" Do you or don't you ? " Jimmy insisted, lying
on his front with his chin on his hands, his
elbows on a moss-cushion, and his bare legs
kicking among the beech-leaves.

" I think you tell adventures awfully well,"
said the bailiff cautiously.

" Very well," said Jimmy, abruptly sitting up,
"you don't believe me. Nonsense, Cathy ! he's a
gentleman, even if he is a bailiff."

" Thank you ! " said the bailiff with eyes that
twinkled.

" You won't tell, will you ? " Jimmy urged.

" Tell what ? "

" Anything."

" Certainly not. I am, as you say, the soul of
honour."

" Then — Cathy, give me the ring."

" Oh, no ! " said the girls together.

Kathleen did not mean to give up the ring ;
Mabel did not mean that she should ; Jimmy
certainly used no force. Yet presently he held
it in his hand. It was his hour. There are
times like that for all of us, when what we say
shall be done is done.

" Now," said Jimmy, " this is the ring Mabel
told you about. I say it is a wishing-ring. And
if you will put it on your hand and wish, what-
ever you wish will happen."
" Must I wish out loud ? "
" Yes— I think so."

«)

18 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" Don't wish for anything silly," said Kathleen,
making the best of the situation, " like its being
fine on Tuesday or its being your favourite pud-
ding for dinner to-morrow. Wish for something
you really want."

" I will," said the bailiff. " I'll wish for the
only thing I really want. I wish my — I wish
my friend were here."

The three who knew the power of the ring
looked round to see the bailiff's friend appear ;
a surprised man that friend would be, they
thought, and perhaps a frightened one. They
had all risen, and stood ready to soothe and
reassure the new-comer. But no startled gentle-
man appeared in the wood, only, coming
quietly through the dappled sun and shadow
under the beech-trees, Mademoiselle and Gerald,
Mademoiselle in a white gown, looking quite
nice and like a picture, Gerald hot and polite.

" Good-afternoon," said that dauntless leader
of forlorn hopes. " I persuaded Mademoi-
selle "

That sentence was never finished, for the
bailiff and the French governess were looking
at each other with the eyes of tired travellers
who find, quite without expecting it, the desired
end of a very long journey. And the children
saw that even if they spoke it would not make
any difference.

" You!" said the bailiff.

" Mais . . . c'est done vous," said Mademoi-
selle, in a funny choky voice.

And they stood still and looked at each other,

ii

320 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" like stuck pigs," as Jimmy said later, for quite
a long time.

" Is she your friend ? " Jimmy asked.

" Yes — oh yes," said the bailiff. " You are my
friend, are you not ? "

" But yes," Mademoiselle said softly. " I am
your friend."

" There ! you see," said Jimmy, " the ring does
do what I said."

"We won't quarrel about that," said the
bailiff. " You can say it's the ring. For
me — it's a coincidence— the happiest, the
dearest "

" Then you ? " said the French governess.

" Of course," said the bailiff. " Jimmy, give
your brother some tea. Mademoiselle, come
and walk in the woods : there are a thousand
things to say."

" Eat then, my Gerald," said Mademoiselle,
now grown young, and astonishingly like a
fairy princess. " I return all at the hour, and
we re-enter together. It is that we must speak
each other. It is long time that we have not
seen us, me and Lord Yalding ! "

" So he was Lord Yalding all the time," said
Jimmy, breaking a stupefied silence as the white
gown and the grey flannels disappeared among
the beech-trunks. " Landscape painter sort of
dodge — silly, I call it. And fancy her being a
friend of his, and his wishing she was here !
Different from us, eh ? Good old ring ! "

" His friend ! " said Mabel with strong scorn :
" don't you see she's his lover ? Don't you see

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 321

she's the lady that was bricked up in the con-
vent, because he was so poor, and he couldn't
find her. And now the ring's made them live
happy ever after. I am glad ! Aren't you,
Cathy?"

" Rather ! " said Kathleen ; " it's as good as
marrying a sailor or a bandit."

"It's the ring did it," said Jimmy. "If the
American takes the house he'll pay lots of rent,
and they can live on that."

" I wonder if they'll be married to-morrow ! "
said Mabel.

" Wouldn't it be fun if we were bridesmaids,"
said Cathy.

" May I trouble you for the melon," said
Gerald. " Thanks ! Why didn't we know he
was Lord Yalding ? Apes and moles that we
were ! "

"I've known since last night," said Mabel
calmly ; " only I promised not to tell. I can
keep a secret, can't I V "

"Too jolly well," said Kathleen, a little
aggrieved.

" He was disguised as a bailiff," said Jimmy ;
" that's why we didn't know."

"Disguised as a fiddle-stick-end," said Gerald.
" Ha, ha ! I see something old Sherlock Holmes
never saw, nor that idiot Watson, either. If
you want a really impenetrable disguise, you
ought to disguise yourself as what you really
are. I'll remember that."

" It's like Mabel, telling things so that you
can't believe them," said Cathy.

21

322 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" I think Mademoiselle's jolly lucky," said
Mabel.

" She's not so bad. He might have done
worse," said Gerald. "Plums, please!"

*****

There was quite plainly magic at work.
Mademoiselle next morning was a changed
governess. Her cheeks were pink, her lips
were red, her eyes were larger and brighter,
and she had done her hair in an entirely new
way, rather frivolous and very becoming.

" Mamselle's coming out ! " Eliza remarked.

Immediately after breakfast Lord Yalding
called with a wagonette that wore a smart
blue cloth coat, and was drawn by two horses
whose coats were brown and shining and fitted
them even better than the blue cloth coat fitted
the wagonette, and the whole party drove in
state and splendour to Yalding Towers.

Arrived there, the children clamoured for per-
mission to explore the castle thoroughly, a thing
that had never yet been possible. Lord Yalding,
a little absent in manner, but yet quite cordial,
consented. Mabel showed the others all the
secret doors and unlikely passages and stairs
that she had discovered. It was a glorious
morning. Lord Yalding and Mademoiselle went
through the house, it is true, but in a rather
half-hearted way. Quite soon they were tired,
and went out through the French windows of
the drawing-room and through the rose garden,
to sit on the curved stone seat in the middle
of the maze, where once, at the beginning of

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 323

things, Gerald, Kathleen, and Jimmy had found
the sleeping Princess who wore pink silk and
diamonds.

The children felt that their going left to the
castle a more spacious freedom, and explored
with more than Arctic enthusiasm. It was as
they emerged from the little rickety secret
staircase that led from the powdering-room of
the state suite to the gallery of the hall that
they came suddenly face to face with the odd
little man who had a beard like a goat and had
taken the wrong turning yesterday.

" This part of the castle is private," said Mabel,
with great presence of mind, and shut the door
behind her.

" I am aware of it," said the goat-faced
stranger, " but I have the permission of the
Earl of Yalding to examine the house at my
leisure."

" Oh ! " said Mabel. " I beg your pardon. We
all do. We didn't know."

" You are relatives of his lordship, I should
surmise ? " asked the goat-faced.

" Not exactly," said Gerald. " Friends."

The gentleman was thin and very neatly
dressed ; he had small, merry eyes and a face
that was brown and dry-looking.

" You are playing some game, I should sup-
pose ? "

" No, sir," said Gerald, " only exploring."

" May a stranger propose himself as a member
of your Exploring Expedition ? " asked the
gentleman, smiling a tight but kind smile.

324 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

The children looked at each other.

"You see," said Gerald, "it's rather difficult
to explain — but — you see what I mean, don't
you?

" He means," said Jimmy, " that we can't take
you into an exploring party without we know
what you want to go for."

" Are you a photographer ? " asked Mabel, " or
is it some newspaper's sent you to write about
the Towers ? "

" I understand your position," said the gentle-
man. " I am not a photographer, nor am I
engaged by any journal. I am a man of in-
dependent means, travelling in this country
with the intention of renting a residence. My
name is Jefferson D. Conway."

" Oh ! " said Mabel ; " then you're the American
millionaire."

" I do not like the description, young lady,"
said Mr. Jefferson D. Conway. " I am an
American citizen, and I am not without means.
This is a fine property — a very fine property. If
it were for sale "

" It isn't, it can't be," Mabel hastened to
explain. " The lawyers have put it in a tale, so
Lord Yalding can't sell it. But you could take
it to live in, and pay Lord Yalding a good
millionairish rent, and then he could marry the
French governess "

" Shish !" said Kathleen and Mr. Jefferson D,
Conway together, and he added : —

" Lead the way, please ; and I should suggest
that the exploration be complete and exhaustive."

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 325

Thus encouraged, Mabel led the millionaire
through all the castle. He seemed pleased, yet
disappointed too.

" It is a fine mansion," he said at last when
they had come back to the point from which
they had started; "but I should suppose, in a
house this size, there would mostly be a secret
stairway, or a priests' hiding place, or a ghost ? "

" There are," said Mabel briefly, " but I thought
Americans didn't believe in anything but
machinery and newspapers." She touched the
spring of the panel behind her, and displayed
the little tottery staircase to the American.
The sight of it worked a wonderful transforma-
tion in him. He became eager, alert, very keen.

" Say! " he cried, over and over again, standing
in the door that led from the powdering-room
to the state bed-chamber. " But this is great-
great ! "

The hopes of every one ran high. It seemed
almost certain that the castle would be let for
a millionairish rent and Lord Yalding be made
affluent to the point of marriage.

" If there were a ghost located in this
ancestral pile, I'd close with the Earl of Yalding
to-day, now, on the nail," Mr. Jefferson D.
Conway went on.

" If you were to stay till to-morrow, and sleep
in this room, I expect you'd see the ghost," said
Mabel.

" There is a ghost located here then ? " he said
joyously.

" They say," Mabel answered, " that old Sir

HE BECAME EAGER, ALERT, VERY KEEN.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 327

Rupert, who lost his head in Henry the Eighth's
time, walks of a night here, with his head under
his arm. But we've not seen that. What we
have seen is the lady in a pink dress with
diamonds in her hair. She carries a lighted
taper," Mabel hastily added. The others, now
saddenly aware of Mabel's plan, hastened to
assure the American in accents of earnest
truth that they had all seen the lady with the
pink gown.

He looked at them with half-closed eyes that
twinkled.

" Well," he said, " I calculate to ask the Earl
of Yalding to permit me to pass a night in his
ancestral best bed-chamber. And if I hear so
much as a phantom footstep, or hear so much
as a ghostly sigh, I'll take the place."

" I am glad ! " said Cathy.

"You appear to be very certain of your
ghost," said the American, still fixing them with
little eyes that shone. " Let me tell you, young
gentlemen, that I carry a gun, and when I see a
ghost, I shoot."

He pulled a pistol out of his hip-pocket, and
looked at it lovingly.

" And I am a fair average shot," he went on,
walking across the shiny floor of the state bed-
chamber to the open window. " See that big-
red rose, like a tea-saucer ? "

They saw.

The next moment a loud report broke the
stillness, and the red petals of the shattered rose
strewed balustrade and terrace.

328 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

The American looked from one child to
another. Every face was perfectly white.

" Jefferson D. Conway made his little pile by
strict attention to business, and keeping his eyes
skinned," he added. "Thank you for all your

kindness."

* * * * *

"Suppose you'd done it, and he'd shot you!"
said Jimmy cheerfully. " That would have been
an adventure, wouldn't it ? "

" I'm going to do it still," said Mabel, pale and
defiant. " Let's find Lord Yalding and get the
ring back."

Lord Yalding had had an interview with
Mabel's aunt, and lunch for six was laid in the
great dark hall, among the armour and the oak
furniture — a beautiful lunch served on silver
dishes. Mademoiselle, becoming every moment
younger and more like a Princess, was moved to
tears when Gerald rose, lemonade-glass in hand,
and proposed the health of " Lord and Lady
Yalding."

When Lord Yalding had returned thanks in
a speech full of agreeable jokes the moment
seemed to Gerald propitious, and he said : —

" The ring, you know — you don't believe in it,
but we do. May we have it back ? "

And got it.

Then, after a hasty council, held in the
panelled jewel-room, Mabel said : " This is a
wishing-ring, and I wish all the American's
weapons of all sorts were here."

Instantly the room was full — six feet up the

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 329

wall — of a tangle and mass of weapons, swords,
spears, arrows, tomahawks, fowling pieces,
blunderbusses, pistols, revolvers, scimitars,
kreeses — every kind of weapon you can think
of — and the four children wedged in among all
these weapons of death hardly dared to breathe.

" He collects arms, I expect," said Gerald, "and
the arrows are poisoned, I shouldn't wonder.
Wish them back where they came from,
Mabel, for goodness' sake, and try again."

Mabel wished the weapons away, and at once
the four children stood safe in a bare panelled
room. But —

"No," Mabel said, "I can't stand it. We'll
work the ghost another way. I wish the
American may think he sees a ghost when lie
goes to bed. Sir Rupert with his head under his
arm will do."

" Is it to-night he sleeps there ? "

"I don't know. I wish he may see Sir Rupert
every night — that'll make it all serene."

"It's rather dull," said Gerald; "we shan't
know whether he's seen Sir Rupert or not."

" We shall know in the morning, when he
takes the house."

This being settled, Mabel's aunt was found to
be desirous of Mabel's company, so the others
went home.

It was when they were at supper that Lord
Yalding suddenly appeared, and said :—

"Mr. Jefferson Conway wants you boys to
spend the night with him in the state chamber.
I've had beds put up. You don't mind, do you ?

330 THE ENCHANTED GASTLE

He seems to think you've got some idea of
playing ghost-tricks on him."

It was difficult to refuse, so difficult that it
proved impossible.

Ten o'clock found the boys each in a narrow
white bed that looked quite absurdly small in
that high, dark chamber, and in face of that
tall gaunt four-poster hung with tapestry and
ornamented with funereal-looking plumes.

" I hope to goodness there isn't a real ghost,"
Jimmy whispered.

" Not likely," Gerald whispered back.

" But I don't want to see Sir Rupert's ghost
with its head under its arm," Jimmy insisted.

" You won't. The most you'll see'll be the
millionaire seeing it. Mabel said he was to see
it, not us. Very likely you'll sleep all night and
not see anything. Shut your eyes and count up
to a million and don't be a goat ! "

But he was reckoning without Mabel and the
ring. As soon as Mabel had learned from her
drab-haired aunt that this was indeed the night
when Mr. Jefferson D. Conway would sleep at
the castle she had hastened to add a wish, " that
Sir Rupert and his head may appear to-night in
the state bedroom."

Jimmy shut his eyes and began to count a
million. Before he had counted it he fell asleep.
So did his brother.

They were awakened by the loud echoing
bang of a pistol shot. Each thought of the shot
that had been fired that morning, and opened
eyes that expected to see a sunshiny terrace

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 331

and red-rose petals strewn upon warm white
stone.

Instead, there was the dark, lofty state
chamber, lighted but little by six tall candles ;
there was the American in shirt and trousers,
a smoking pistol in his hand ; and there, ad-
vancing from the door of the powdering-room,
a figure in doublet and hose, a ruff round its
neck — and no head ! The head, sure enough,
was there ; but it was under the right arm, held
close in the slashed-velvet sleeve of the doublet.
The face looking from under the arm wore a
pleasant smile. Both boys, I am sorry to say,
screamed. The American fired again. The
bullet passed through Sir Rupert, who advanced
without appearing to notice it.

Then, suddenly, the lights went out. The
next thing the boys knew it was morning. A
grey daylight shone blankly through the tall
windows — and wild rain was beating upon the
glass, and the American was gone.

" Where are we ? " said Jimmy, sitting up with
tangled hair and looking round him. " Oh, I
remember. Ugh ! it was horrid. I'm about fed
up with that ring, so I don't mind telling you."

" Nonsense ! " said Gerald. " I enjoyed it. I
wasn't a bit frightened, were you ? "

" No," said Jimmy, " of course I wasn't."
*****

"We've done the trick," said Gerald later
when they learned that the American had
breakfasted early with Lord Yalding and taken
the first train to London ; " he's gone to get rid

THE AMERICAN FIRED AGAIN.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 333

of his other house, and take this one. The old
ring's beginning to do really useful things."

" Perhaps you'll believe in the ring now," said
Jimmy to Lord Y aiding, whom he met later on
in the picture-gallery ; " it's all our doing that
Mr. Jefferson saw the ghost. He told us he'd
take the house if he saw a ghost, so of course
we took care he did see one."

" Oh, you did, did you ? " said Lord Yalding in
rather an odd voice. " I'm very much obliged,
I'm sure."

" Don't mention it," said Jimmy kindly. " I
thought you'd be pleased and him too."

" Perhaps you'll be interested to learn," said
Lord Yalding, putting his hands in his pockets
and staring down at Jimmy, "that Mr. Jefferson
D. Conway was so pleased with your ghost that
he got me out of bed at six o'clock this morning
to talk about it."

" Oh, ripping ! " said Jimmy. " What did he
say?"

" He said, as far as I can remember," said
Lord Yalding, still in the same strange voice —
"he said: 'My lord, your ancestral pile is Al.
It is, in fact, The Limit. Its luxury is palatial,
its grounds are nothing short of Edenesque. No
expense has been spared, I should surmise. Your
ancestors were whole-hoggers. They have done
the thing as it should be done — every detail
attended to. I like your tapestry, and I like
your oak, and I like your secret stairs. But I
think your ancestors should have left well

334 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

enough alone, and stopped at that.' So I said
they had, as far as I knew, and he shook his
head and said : —

" ' No, sir. Your ancestors take the air of
a night with their heads under their arms. A
ghost that sighed or glided or rustled I could
have stood, and thanked you for it, and con-
sidered it in the rent. But a ghost that bullets
go through while it stands grinning with a bare
neck and its head loose under its own arm and
little boys screaming and fainting in their beds —
no ! What I say is, If this is a British
hereditary high-toned family ghost, excuse Me ! '
And he went off by the early train."

" I say," the stricken Jimmy remarked, ' I am
sorry, and I don't think we did faint, really I
don't — but we thought it would be just what
you wanted. And perhaps some one else will
take the house."

" I don't know any one else rich enough," said
Lord Yalding. " Mr. Conway came the day
before lie said he would, or you'd never have got
hold of him. And I don't know how you did it,
and I don't want to know. It was a rather silly
trick."

There was a gloomy pause. The rain beat
against the long windows.

" I say " — Jimmy looked up at Lord Yalding
with the light of a new idea in his round face.
" I say, if you're hard up, why don't you sell
your jewels ? "

" I haven't any jewels, you meddlesome young
duffer," said Lord Yalding quite crossly ; and

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 335

taking his hands out of his pockets, he began to
walk away.

" I mean the ones in the panelled room with
the stars in the ceiling," Jimmy insisted, follow-
ing him.

" There aren't any," said Lord Yalding shortly ;
" and if this is some more ring-nonsense I advise
you to be careful, young man. I've had about
as much as I care for."

" It's not ring-nonsense," said Jimmy : " there
are shelves and shelves of beautiful family
jewels. You can sell them and "

" Oh, no ! " cried Mademoiselle, appearing like
an oleograph of a duchess in the door of the
picture - gallery ; " don't sell the family
jewels "

" There aren't any, my lady," said Lord
Yalding, going towards her. " I thought you
were never coming."

" Oh, aren't there ! " said Mabel, who had
followed Mademoiselle. " You just come and
see.

" Let us see what they will to show us," cried
Mademoiselle, for Lord Yalding did not move ;
" it should at least be amusing."

" It is," said Jimmy.

So they went, Mabel and Jimmy leading, while
Mademoiselle and Lord Yalding followed, hand
in hand.

" It's much safer to walk hand in hand," said
Lord Yalding ; " with these children at large one
never knows what may happen next."

CHAPTER XII

It would be interesting, no doubt, to describe
the feelings of Lord Yalding as he followed
Mabel and Jimmy through his ancestral halls,
but I have no means of knowing at all what he
felt. Yet one must suppose that he felt some-
thing : bewilderment, perhaps, mixed with a
faint wonder, and a desire to pinch himself to
see if he were dreaming. Or he may have
pondered the rival questions, "Am I mad?"
" Are they mad ? " without being at all able to
decide which he ought to try to answer, let alone
deciding what, in either case, the answer ought
to be. You see, the children did seem to believe
in the odd stories they told — and the wish had
come true, and the ghost had appeared. He must
have thought — but all this is vain ; I don't really
know what he thought any more than you do.
Nor can I give you any clue to the thoughts
and feelings of Mademoiselle. I only know that
she was very happy, but any one would have
known that if they had seen her face. Perhaps
this is as good a moment as any to explain that
when her guardian had put her in a convent so
that she should not sacrifice her fortune by
marrying a poor lord, her guardian had secured
that fortune (to himself) by going off with it to
South America. Then, having no money left,
Mademoiselle had to work for it. So she went

336

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 337

out as governess, and took the situation she did
take because it was near Lord Yalding's home.
She wanted to see him, even though she thought
he had forsaken her and did not love her any
more. And now she had seen him. I daresay
she thought about some of these things as she
went along through his house, her hand held in
his. But of course I can't be sure.

Jimmy's thoughts, of course, I can read like
any old book. He thought, " Now he'll have to
believe me" That Lord Yalding should believe
him had become, quite unreasonably, the most
important thing in the world to Jimmy. He
wished that Gerald and Kathleen were there to
share his triumph, but they were helping Mabel's
aunt to cover the grand furniture up, and so
were out of what followed. Not that they
missed much, for when Mabel proudly said,
" Now you'll see," and the others came close
round her in the little panelled room, there was
a pause, and then — nothing happened at all !

" There's a secret spring here somewhere,"
said Mabel, fumbling with fingers that had
suddenly grown hot and damp.

" Where ? " said Lord Yalding.

" Here" said Mabel impatiently, " only I can't
find it."

And she couldn't. She found the spring of
the secret panel under the window all right, but
that seemed to every one dull compared with
the jewels that every one had pictured and two
at least had seen. But the spring that made
the oak panelling slide away and displayed
jewels plainly to any eye worth a king's ransom

9.9,

338 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

— this could not be found. More, it was simply
not there. There could be no doubt of that.
Every inch of the panelling was felt by careful
lingers. The earnest protests di" Mabel and
Jimmy died away presently in a silence made
painful by the hotness of one's ears, the dis-
comfort of not liking to meet any one's eyes, and
the resentful feeling that the spring was not
behaving in at all a sportsmanlike way, and
that, in a word, this was not cricket.

" You see ! " said Lord Yalding severely.
" Now you've had your joke, if you call it a joke,
and I've had enough of the whole silly business.
Give me the ring — it's mine, I suppose, since you
say you found it somewhere here — and don't
let's hear another word about all this rubbish
of magic and enchantment."

" Gerald's got the ring," said Mabel miserably.

"Then go and fetch him," said Lord Yalding —
" both of you."

The melancholy pair retired, and Lord Yalding
spent the time of their absence in explaining to
Mademoiselle how very unimportant jewels were
compared with other things.

The four children came back together.

" We've had enough of this ring business," said
Lord Yalding. " Give it to me, and we'll say no
more about it."

"I — I can't get it off," said Gerald. "It — it
always did have a will of its own."

" I'll soon get it off," said Lord Yalding. But
he didn't. " We'll try soap," he said firmly. Four
out of his five hearers knew just exactly how
much use soap would be.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 339

" They won't believe about the jewels," wailed
Mabel, suddenly dissolved in tears, " and I can't
find the spring. I've felt all over — we all have
— it was just here, and "

Her fingers felt it as she spoke ; and as she
ceased to speak the carved panels slid away, and
the blue velvet shelves laden with jewels were
disclosed to the unbelieving eyes of Lord Yalding
and the lady who was to be his wife.

" Jove ! " said Lord Yalding.

" Miser icorde ! " said the lady.

" But why note ? " gasped Mabel. " Why not
before '? "

" I expect it's magic," said Gerald. " There's
no real spring here, and it couldn't act because
the ring wasn't here. You know Phoebus told
us the ring was the heart of all the magic."

" Shut it up and take the ring away and see."

They did, and Gerald was (as usual, he himself
pointed out) proved to be right. When the ring
was away there was no spring ; when the ring
was in the room there (as Mabel urged) was the
spring all right enough.

" So you see," said Mabel to Lord Yalding.

" I see that the spring's very artfully con-
cealed," said that dense peer. " I think it was
very clever indeed of you to find it. And if
those jewels are real "

" Of course they're real," said Mabel in-
dignantly.

" Well, anyway," said Lord Yalding, " thank
you all very much. I think it's clearing up. Ill
send the wagonette home with you after lunch.
And if you don't mind, 111 have the ring."

310 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

Half an hour of soap and water produced no
effect whatever, except to make the finger of
Gerald very red and very sore. Then Lord
Yalding said something very impatient indeed,
and then Gerald suddenly became angry and
said : " Well, I'm sure I wish it would come off,"
and of course instantly, " slick as butter," as he
later pointed out, off it came.

" Thank you," said Lord Yalding.

" And I believe now he thinks I kept it on on
purpose," said Gerald afterwards when, at ease
on the leads at home, they talked the whole
thing out over a tin of preserved pineapple
and a bottle of gingerbeer apiece. " There's no
pleasing some people. He wasn't in such a fiery
hurry to order that wagonette after he found
that Mademoiselle meant to go when we did.
But I liked him better when he was a humble
bailiff. Take him for all in all, he does not look
as if we should like him again."

" He doesn't know what's the matter with
him," said Kathleen, leaning back against the
tiled roof ; " it"s really the magic — it's like
sickening with measles. Don't you remember
how cross Mabel was at first about the in-
visibleness ? "

" Rather ! " said Jimmy.

"It's partly that," said Gerald, trying to be
fair, " and partly it's the being in love. It
always makes people like idiots — a chap at
school told me. His sister was like that — quite
rotten, you know. And she used to be quite
a decent sort before she was engaged."

At tea and at supper Mademoiselle was

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 'Mi

radiant — as attractive as a lady on a Christmas
card, as merry as a marmoset, and as kind as
yon would always be yourself if you could take
the trouble. At breakfast, an equal radiance,
kindness, attraction, merriment. Then Lord
Yalding came to see her. The meeting took
place in the drawing-room ; the children with
deep discreetness remained shut in the school-
room till Gerald, going up to his room for a
pencil, surprised Eliza with her ear glued to
the drawing-room key-hole.

After that Gerald sat on the top stair with a
book. He could not hear any of the conversa-
tion in the drawing-room, but he could command
a view of the door, and in this way be certain
that no one else heard any of it. Thus it was
that when the drawing-room door opened Gerald
was in a position to see Lord Yalding come out.
" Our young hero," as he said later, " coughed
with infinite tact to show that he was there,"
but Lord Yalding did not seem to notice.
He walked in a blind sort of way to the
hat-stand, fumbled clumsily Avith the umbrellas
and mackintoshes, found his straw hat and
looked at it gloomily, crammed it on his head
and went out, banging the door behind him in
the most reckless way.

He left the drawing-room door open, and
Gerald, though he had purposely put himself in
a position where one could hear nothing from
the drawing-room when the door was shut,
could hear something quite plainly now that
the door was open. That something, he noticed
with deep distress and disgust, was the sound

342 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

of sobs and sniffs. Mademoiselle was quite
certainly crying.

"Jimminy!" he remarked to himself, "they
haven't lost much time. Fancy their beginning
to quarrel already ! I hope I'll never have to be
anybody's lover."

But this was no time to brood on the terrors
of his own future. Eliza might at any time
occur. She would not for a moment hesitate to
go through that open door, and push herself
into the very secret sacred heart of Made-
moiselle's grief. It seemed to Gerald better
that he should be the one to do this. So he
went softly down the worn green Dutch carpet
of the stairs and into the drawing-room, shutting
the door softly and securely behind him.

"It is all over," Mademoiselle was saying, her
face buried in the beady arum-lilies on a red
ground worked for a cushion cover by a former
pupil : " he will not marry me ! "

Do not ask me how Gerald had gained the
lady's confidence. He had, as I think I said
almost at the beginning, very pretty ways with
grown-ups, when he chose. Anyway, he was
holding her hand, almost as affectionately as if
she had been his mother with a headache, and
saying " Don't ! " and " Don't cry ! " and " It'll be
all right, you see if it isn't " in the most comfort-
ing way you can imagine, varying the treatment
with gentle thumps on the back and entreaties
to her to tell him all about it.

This wasn't mere curiosity, as you might
think. The entreaties were prompted by

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 343

Gerald's growing certainty that whatever was
the matter was somehow the fault of that ring.
And in this Gerald was (" once more," as he told
himself) right.

The tale, as told by Mademoiselle, was certainly
an unusual one. Lord Yalding, last night after
(1 inner, had walked in the park " to think of "

" Yes, I know," said Gerald ; ' ; and he had the
ring on. And he saw "

" He saw the monuments become alive," sobbed
Mademoiselle : " his brain was troubled by the
ridiculous accounts of fairies that you tell him.
He sees Apollon and Aphrodite alive on their
marble. He remembers him of your story. He
wish himself a statue. Then he becomes mad-
imagines to himself that your story of the
island is true, plunges in the lake, swims among
the beasts of the Ark of Noe, feeds with gods on
an island. At dawn the madness become less.
He think the Pantheon vanish. But him, no —
he thinks himself statue, hiding from gardeners
in his garden till nine less a quarter. Then he
thinks to wish himself no more a statue and
perceives that he is flesh and blood. A bad
dream, but he has lost the head with the tales
you tell. He say it is no dream but he is fool —
mad — how you say ? And a mad man must not
marry. There is no hope. I am at despair !
And the life is vain ! "

" There is" said Gerald earnestly. " I assure
you there is — hope, I mean. And life's as right
as rain really. And there's nothing to despair
about. He's not mad, and it's not a dream. It's
magic. It really and truly is."

344 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

" The magic exists not," Mademoiselle moaned ;
" it is that he is mad. It is the joy to re-see me
after so many days. Oh, la-la-la-la-la ! "

"Did he talk to the gods?" Gerald asked
gently.

" It is there the most mad of all his ideas. He
say that Mercure give him rendezvous at some
temple to-morrow when the moon raise herself."

" Right," cried Gerald, " righto ! Dear nice,
kind, pretty Mademoiselle Rapunzel, don't be
a silly little duffer " — he lost himself for a
moment among the consoling endearments he
was accustomed to offer to Kathleen in moments
of grief and emotion, but hastily added : " I
mean, do not be a lady who weeps causelessly.
To-morrow he will go to that temple. I will go.
Thou shalt go — he will go. We will go — you will
go — let 'em all go ! And, you see, it's going to be
absolutely all right. He'll see he isn't mad, and
you'll understand all about everything. Take
my handkerchief, it's quite a clean one as it
happens ; I haven't even unfolded it. Oh ! do
stop crying, there's a dear, darling, long-lost
lover."

This flood of eloquence was not without effect.
She took his handkerchief, sobbed, half smiled,
dabbed at her eyes, and said : " Oh, naughty! Is
it some trick you play him, like the ghost ? "

" I can't explain," said Gerald, " but I give you
my word of honour — you know what an English-
man's word of honour is, don't you ? even if you
are French — that everything is going to be
exactly what you wish. I've never told you a
lie. Believe me ! "

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 345

" It is curious," said she, drying her eyes, " but
I do." And once again, so suddenly that he
could not have resisted, she kissed him. I
think, however, that in this her hour of sorrow
he would have thought it mean to resist.

" It pleases her and it doesn't hurt me — much,"
would have been his thought.

* * * *

And now it is near moonrise. The French
governess, half-doubting, half hoping, but wholly
longing to be near Lord Yalding even if he be
as mad as a March hare, and the four children —
they have collected Mabel by an urgent letter-
card posted the day before— are going over
the dewy grass. The moon has not yet risen,
but her light is in the sky mixed with the
pink and purple of the sunset. The west is heavy
with ink-clouds and rich colour, but the east,
where the moon rises, is clear as a rock-pool.

They go across the lawn and through the
beech-wood and come at last, through a tangle
of underwood and bramble, to a little level
tableland that rises out of the flat hill- top — one
tableland out of another. Here is the ring of
vast rugged stones, one pierced with a curious
round hole, worn smooth at its edges. In the
middle of the circle is a great flat stone, alone,
desolate, full of meaning — a stone that is covered
thick with the memory of old faiths and creeds
long since forgotten. Something dark moves
in the circle. The French girl breaks from the
children, goes to it, clings to its arm. It is
Lord Yalding, and he is telling her to go.

" Never of the life ! " she cries. " If you are

346 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

mad I am mad too, for I believe the tale these
children tell. And I am here to be with thee
and see with thee — whatever the rising moon
shall show us."

The children, holding hands by the flat stone,
more moved by the magic in the girl's voice
than by any magic of enchanted rings, listen,
trying not to listen.

" Are you not afraid ? " Lord Yalding is
saying.

" Afraid ? With you ? " she laughs. He put
his arm round her. The children hear her sigh.

" Are you afraid," he says, " my darling ? "

Gerald goes across the wide turf ring expressly
to say : —

" You can't be afraid if you are wearing the
ring. And I'm sorry, but we can hear every
word you say."

She laughs again. " It makes nothing," she
says ; " you know already if ^ve love each other."

Then he puts the ring on her finger, and they
stand together. The white of his flannel coat
sleeve marks no line on the white of her dress ;
they stand as though cut out of one block of
marble.

Then a faint greyness touches the top of that
round hole, creeps up the side. Then the hole
is a disc of light — a moonbeam strikes straight
through it across the grey green of the circle
that the stones mark, and as the moon rises
the moonbeam slants downward. The children
have drawn back till they stand close to the
lovers. The moonbeam slants more and more ;
now it touches the far end of the stone, now it

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 347

draws nearer and nearer to the middle of it, now
at last it touches the very heart and centre of
that central stone. And then it is as though
a spring were touched, a fountain of light
released. Everything changes. Or, rather,
everything is revealed. There are no more
secrets. The plan of the world seems plain,
like an easy sum that one writes in big figures
on a child's slate. One wonders how one can
ever have wondered about anything. Space
is not ; every place that one has seen or
dreamed of is here. Time is not ; into this
instant is crowded all that one has ever done
or dreamed of doing. It is a moment, and it is
eternity. It is the centre of the universe and it
is the universe itself. The eternal light rests
on and illuminates the eternal heart of things.
*****

None of the six human beings who saw that
moon-rising were ever able to think about
it as having anything to do with time. Only
for one instant could that moonray have rested
full on the centre of that stone. And yet there
was time for many happenings.

From that height one could see far out over
the quiet park and sleeping gardens, and
through the grey green of them shapes moved,
approaching.

The great beasts came first, strange forms
that were when the world was new — gigantic
lizards with wings — dragons they lived as in
men's memories — mammoths, strange vast
birds, they crawled up the hill and ranged
themselves outside the circle. Then, not from

348 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

the garden but from very far away, came the
stone gods of Egypt and Assyria — bull-bodied,
bird-winged, hawk-headed, cat-headed, all in
stone, and all alive and alert ; strange, grotesque
figures from the towers of cathedrals — figures
of angels with folded wings, figures of beasts
with wings wide spread ; sphinxes ; uncouth
idols from Southern palm-fringed islands ; and,
last of all, the beautiful marble shapes of the
gods and goddesses who had held their festival
on the lake-island, and bidden Lord Yalding and
the children to this meeting.

Not a word was spoken. Each stone shape
came gladly and quietly into the circle of light
and understanding, as children, tired with a long
ramble, creep quietly through the open door
into the firelit welcome of home.

The children had thought to ask many ques-
tions. And it had been promised that the
questions should be answered. Yet now no
one spoke a word, because all had come into
the circle of the real magic where all things
are understood without speech.

Afterwards none of them could ever remember
at all what had happened. But they never
forgot that they had been somewhere where
everything was easy and beautiful. And people
who can remember even that much are never
quite the same again. And when they came
to talk of it next day they found that to each
some little part of that night's great enlighten-
ment was left.

All the stone creatures drew closer round the
stone — the light where the moonbeam struck

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 349

it seemed to break away in spray such as water
makes when it falls from a height. All the
crowd was bathed in whiteness. A deep hush
lay over the vast assembly.

Then a wave of intention swept over the
mighty crowd. All the faces, bird, beast,
Greek statue, Babylonian monster, human
child and human lover, turned upward, the
radiant light illumined them and one word
broke from all.

" The light ! " they cried, and the sound of
their voice was like the sound of a great wave ;
"the light! the light "

And then the light was not any more, and,
soft as floating thistle-down, sleep was laid
on the eyes of all but the immortals.

The grass was chill and dewy and the clouds
had veiled the moon. The lovers and the chil-
dren were standing together, all clinging close,
not for fear, but for love.

" I want," said the French girl softly, " to go
to the cave on the island."

Very quietly through the gentle brooding
night they went down to the boat-house, loosed
the clanking chain, and dipped oars among
the drowned stars and lilies. They came to the
island, and found the steps.

" I brought candles," said Gerald, " in case."

So, lighted by Geralds candles, they went
down into the Hall of Psyche ! and there glowed
the light spread from her statue, and all was
as the children had seen it before.

350 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

It is the Hall of Granted Wishes.

" The ring," said Lord Yalding.

" The ring," said his lover, " is the magic ring
given long ago to a mortal, and it is what you
say it is. It was given to your ancestor by a
lady of my house that he might build her a
garden and a house like her own palace and
garden in her own land. So that this place
is built partly by his love and partly by that
magic. She never lived to see it; that was
the price of the magic."

It must have been English that she spoke,
for otherwise how could the children have
understood her? Yet the words were not like
Mademoiselle's way of speaking.

"Except from children," her voice went on,
" the ring exacts a payment. You paid for me,
when I came by your wish, by this terror of
madness that you have since known. Only one
wish is free."

" And that wish is ? "

" The last," she said. " Shall I wish ? "

"Yes — wish," they said, all of them.

" I wish, then," said Lord Yalding's lover,
" that all the magic this ring has wrought may
be undone, and that the ring itself may be no
more and no less than a charm to bind thee and
me together for evermore."

She ceased. And as she ceased the enchanted
light died away, the windows of granted wishes
went out, like magic-lantern pictures. Gerald's
candle faintly lighted a rudely arched cave, and
where Psyche's statue had been was a stone
with something carved on it.

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 351

Gerald held the light low.

" It is her grave," the girl said.

Next day no one could remember anything
at all exactly. But a good many things were
changed. There was no ring but the plain gold
ring that Mademoiselle found clasped in her hand
when she woke in her own bed in the morning.
More than half the jewels in the panelled
room were gone, and those that remained had
no panelling to cover them; they just lay bare
on the velvet-covered shelves. There was no
passage at the back of the Temple of Flora.
Quite a lot of the secret passages and hidden
rooms had disappeared. And there were not
nearly so many statues in the garden as every-
one had supposed. And large pieces of the
castle were missing and had to be replaced at
great expense. From which we may conclude
that Lord Yalding's ancestor had used the ring
a good deal to help him in his building.

However, the jewels that were left were quite
enough to pay for everything.

The suddenness with which all the ring-magic
was undone was such a shock to everyone con-
cerned that they now almost doubt that any
magic ever happened.

But it is certain that Lord Yalding married
the French governess and that a plain gold ring-
was used in the ceremony, and this, if you come
to think of it, could be no other than the magic
ring, turned, by that last Avish, into a charm to
keep him and his wife together for ever.

352 THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

Also, if all this story is nonsense and a make-
up — if Gerald and Jimmy and Kathleen and
Mabel have merely imposed on my trusting
nature by a pack of unlikely inventions, how
do you account for the paragraph which ap-
peared in the evening papers the day after the
magic of the moon-rising?

"MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF A WELL-
KNOWN CITY MAN,"

it said, and then went on to say how a gentle-
man, well known and much respected in
financial circles, had vanished, leaving no trace.

"Mr. U. W. Ugli," the papers continued, "had remained late,
working at his office as was his occasional habit. The office door
was found locked, and on its being broken open the clothes of the
unfortunate gentleman were found in a heap on the floor, together
with an umbrella, a walking stick, a golf club, and, curiously
enough, a feather brush, such as housemaids use for dusting. Of
his body, however, there was no trace. The police are stated to
have a clue."

If they have, they have kept it to themselves.
But I do not think they can have a clue, because,
of course, that respected gentleman was the
Ugly-Wugly who became real when, in search
of a really good hotel, he got into the Hall of
Granted Wishes. And if none of this story ever
happened, how is it that those four children are
such friends with Lord and Lady Yalding, and
stay at The Towers almost every holidays?

It is all very well for all of them to pretend
that the whole of this story is my own in-
vention : facts are facts, and you can't explain
them away.

T7NWIN BROTHEKS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.

Cm